FEDS CROSS THE LINE WITH FAKE NEWS

When comedian Norm McDonald was on "Saturday Night Live," he was the
anchorman on the showA's Weekend Update skit. He would read headlines from
that week's news and change portions of the stories to make them funny. At
the end of the segment, he would sign off with the words, "And that's the
fake news." It was funny as part of a comedy skit, but it has no place in
the real world of journalism. More importantly, it has no place in government.

And we're not alone in that belief. That was the conclusion reached by the
Government Accountability Office when it slapped the Bush administration on
the wrist recently for distributing "covert propaganda," illegal under
federal law. The GAO scolded the Office of Drug Control Policy for a series
of government-produced anti-drug television messages packaged as news
reports. The spots, announcing new anti-drug efforts, were distributed to
television stations around the country, complete with suggested scripts for
lead-ins to the bogus reports.

The administration defended the tapes, saying they were no different than
printed news releases routinely sent to print media outlets.

There is some merit in that argument, but newspapers and magazines
generally rewrite those releases and attribute their sources. The
government's tapes had no such attribution. Some television stations used
portions or entire reports and presented them to their viewers as news.
That's an ethics problem those stations will have to deal with to keep
faith with their viewers, but the administration broke federal laws that
bar the government from engaging in such covert propaganda.

ODCP officials contend the stations knew the government produced the spots
and it did nothing improper. From what we've seen, that's partly true.

One video, "Urging parents to Get the Facts Straight on Teen Marijuana
Use," came complete with a script for anchors to read to lead into the
report. A series of interviews with Drug Czar John Walters and other
experts on teen drug use follows. The video closes with, "This is Mike
Morris reporting." Morris is a former journalist who now works for the
government.

The report sounds like pretty standard stuff; we see similar reports
regularly on the evening news. There's not much of a credibility problem there.

However, another video purports to show a news conference featuring several
ODCP officials. The "news conference," however, was a set-up, with the
officials reading from scripts. "In essence, they're actors," said Susan
Poling, managing associate general counsel at GAO.

One of the foundations of a free society is an independent press,
completely free of government influence. Although some news outlets are
often accused of supporting one faction or another of government, they are
independent from those factions and don't get their marching orders from
any political party.

The press' role in a free society is to keep citizens informed about what
government is doing and to hold officials accountable to the Constitution
they've sworn to uphold.

That's not possible if the media are spoon-fed supposed news stories that
support government agendas. The feds should stay out of the news business
and the media should be more careful about their sources.