Today there are two developments that pose serious threats to the freedom of press in the US.
Back in 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the “Freedom of Information Act” (FOIA). It gave ordinary citizens — including journalists — the right to see almost all government documents, except those that were classified for national security purposes.
In those days, citizen interest groups were far less numerous and far less powerful.
Today, these are the groups that file most of the FOIA requests, while an increasing number of journalists and news organizations find the law virtually useless.
For the media, the main reason is time. Frequently, government agencies that hold requested documents claim an exemption or simply refuse to produce them. The result is that, today, it can easily take up to three years to obtain documents through a FOIA request — and, more often than not, the information-seeker has to sue the government in court to make its case.
For journalists, the story is usually dead by the time documents appear. That’s one of the reasons so many published quotes these days are attributed to unnamed officials who speak “on condition of anonymity”. Journalists cultivate their own sources. And the need for speed has only been exacerbated by the 24/7-news cycle.
Anonymous sourcing is nothing new (remember Watergate and “Deep Throat”?). But the practice has proliferated exponentially over the past decade.
But for advocacy groups like the American Civil Liberties Union or People for the American Way or hundreds of other similar organizations, FOIA still represents arguably their only avenue toward disclosure of “un-PR-ized” original information.
But the process can be expensive. The Department of Homeland Security recently told People for the American Way, an advocacy group thst it would cost close to $400,000 for them to compile the requested documents.
The obsessive secrecy of the Bush administration has triggered a 75 percent increase in the numbers of documents categorized as “classified” — and a corresponding spike in FOIA requests.
Much of what we know about the abuses perpetrated by US military personnel at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and numerous other locations, has come from unclassified but “sensitive” documents obtained by advocacy groups after FOIA requests. Likewise, whistleblowers, lobbyists, drug companies, detainee renderers, and so forth.
Thus, the organizations that have endured the delays and spent the considerable sums involved in requesting documents and then going to court to get them have themselves become prime news sources for journalists. The interest of the media is to get the news out right away. The interest of the Bush administration is to stop disclosure altogether or delay it as long as possible.
The current government’s vale of secrecy has also generated a virtual cottage industry of “open-the-government” programs, such as the Government Secrecy project of the American Federation of Scientists, OMB (Office of Management and Budget) Watch, and many others. And these too have become news sources for journalists.
The second scary development is the “PR-izing” of government. The number of so-called public affairs officers in the public sector increased dramatically since the Clinton administration, and has continued to grow under President Bush.
Both used pre-packaged “news” to get their messages out, but our current president’s media machine has brought this dubious art form to a new level altogether. Even though the Government Accountability Office has labeled the practice as illegal “covert propaganda”, President Bush is relying on other legal opinion and shows no inclination to desist.
For example:
Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit, Armstrong Williams, $240,000 to promote his “No Child Left Behind” education law on his nationally syndicated television show and through his newspaper column and to urge other black journalists to do the same. Two other journalists, Maggie Gallagher and Michael McManus, have also been accused of receiving money to endorse Bush administration programs.
Since 2001, the Army and Air Force Hometown News Service has fielded 40 reporters, producers and public affairs specialists to create “good military news” to be beamed to home audiences via local news stations.
More than 20 different federal agencies used taxpayer funds to produce television news segments promoting Bush administration policies. These “video news releases,” or VNRs, were broadcast on hundreds of local news programs without disclosing their source.
And the Pentagon now has its own TV outlet.
Regarding the VNRs, President Bush said the government’s practice of sending “packaged news stories” to local television stations was legal and he has no plans to cease it.
His defense of the packages, which are designed to look like television news segments, came after the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a Congressional watchdog agency, called them a form of covert propaganda.
Despite a rising chorus of criticism from journalists and media critics, the Bush administration shows no sign of abandoning its distribution of taxpayer-funded “news” to US newspapers, radio and television stations.
