Ethics Newsline®

WASHINGTON
The Bush administration broke federal law by using public funds to pay for propaganda in the form of video “news releases” touting the new Medicare law, the General Accounting Office (GAO) ruled last week.

The videos — one version in English, another in Spanish — were formatted to look like news segments and ended with sign-offs such as, “In Washington, I’m Karen Ryan reporting,” reported the New York Times.

The releases, however, were not news, but promotions funded by the Bush administration to advocate its legislation — a provenance noted on the tapes’ boxes, but nowhere in the videos themselves.

The GAO, the nonpartisan investigative agency of Congress, last week said that lack of transparency made the advertisements into essentially “covert propaganda” during an election year, according to the Times.

Viewers of the videos, which aired on TV stations across the country earlier this year, would “believe that the information came from a non-government source or neutral party,” rather than from the administration, it ruled.

With images of President Bush receiving a standing ovation and of a pharmacist praising the new law, the videos were flawed by “notable omissions and weaknesses” and were “misleading as to source.”

The GAO found that the videos violate federal appropriations laws and strictures against the use of federal money for “publicity or propaganda purposes” without congressional approval.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) last week said he would introduce legislation requiring the Bush reelection campaign to reimburse the Medicare program for the cost of the ads, reported the Reuters news agency.