PressEthic

The US government produces video stories to promote its policies. The problem is that they look exactly like real journalistic stories. And the government seems to expect TV stations to broadcast them just like any other news story.

The New York Times describes one of those stories: “The segment, a "video news release" narrated by a woman named Karen Ryan, said that President Bush's program for providing remedial instruction and tutoring to children "gets an A-plus." Ms. Ryan also narrated two videos praising the new Medicare drug benefit last year. In those segments, as in the education video, the narrator ended by saying, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."”

In a report, the Government Accountability Office described these stories as “covert propaganda”. The G.A.O. blamed the Bush administration. However, the government did not force anybody to broadcast the stories. Any administration has the right to promote its policy and to use all possible means to do so.

The real problem is with the media. It is unclear how many stations broadcast the story. But the fact that the government keeps producing more of them shows that it must be somehow efficient.

It is obviously not enough to pretend that those videos are just “factual”. Even if they were (which is apparently not the case), that would not mean they are objective. The question remains of what facts are reported and how they are presented. The government will always only give one side of the story.

Obviously, these videos are great material for lazy media organizations. They summarize all the important facts in a way that is appealing to viewers. More importantly, they are free. But communications experts working for the governement are not journalists. At the very least, the stations that broadcast these videos should say they are ads produced by the government.