L'administration de Bush dépense $1.6 milliards sur la propagande

Par Christopher Lee

Combien coûte bonne valeur de pression ? À l'administration de Bush, environ $1.6 milliards.

C'est combien sept départements fédéraux ont dépensé de 2003 par le deuxième trimestre de 2005 sur 343 contrats avec des sociétés de relations publiques, des agences de publicité, des organismes de médias et des individus, selon un nouveau rapport d'Office de responsabilité de gouvernement.

Le rapport de 154 pages fournit le regard le plus complet jusqu'ici à la portée de la dépense fédérale dans un secteur qui a produit l'année dernière de la polémique substantielle. Congressional Democrats asked the GAO to look into federal public relations contracts last spring at the height of the furor over government-sponsored prepackaged news and journalism-for-sale.

Armstrong Williams, the conservative commentator, had been unmasked as a paid administration promoter who received $186,000 from the Education Department to speak favorably about President Bush’s No Child Left Behind law in broadcast appearances.

Around the same time, a spat erupted between the GAO and the White House over whether the government’s practice of feeding TV stations prepackaged, ready-to-air news stories that touted administration policies (but did not disclose the government as the source) amounted to “covert propaganda.” The GAO said that it did. The administration disagreed, saying spreading information about federal programs is part of the agencies’ mission, and that the burden of disclosure falls on the TV stations.

Congress sided with the GAO. Lawmakers inserted a provision into an annual spending bill requiring federal agencies to include “a clear notification” within the text or audio of a prepackaged news story that it was prepared or paid for by the government.

The new report reveals that federal public relations spending goes far beyond “video news releases.” The contracts covered the waterfront, from a $6.3 million agreement to help the Department of Homeland Security educate Americans about how to respond to terrorist attacks; to a $647,350 contract to assist the Transportation Security Administration in producing video news releases and media tours on the subject of airport security procedures; to a $6,600 contract to train managers at the Bureau of Reclamation in dealing with the media.

“Careful oversight of this spending is essential given the track record of the Bush administration, which has used taxpayer dollars to fund covert propaganda within the United States,” Rep. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.), ranking Democrat of the House Government Reform Committee, said in a statement yesterday.

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