Hightower Lowdown

What if you saw a news report on your local television station, then later you learned that the report had actually been written by the federal government and that the "reporter" had been hired by the government to read the government- written script? Nonsense, you'd say, this isn't the Soviet Union. We don't allow government-scripted news in America!

No? Well, maybe you've seen some recent news reports touting the benefits of George W's new prescription-drug law for Medicare patients. Some of these segments show Bush signing the law and getting a standing ovation from those watching. One shows a pharmacist explaining the program to an elderly customer. "It sounds like a good idea," says the customer. "A very good idea," responds the pharmacist. Talk about puff pieces!

Nowhere is it mentioned that Bush's law is an exorbitantly expensive program that will benefit drug-company gougers more than senior citizens, or that the Bushites lied about the price tag to get it through Congress. That's because this news bite was produced and distributed to TV stations nationwide by Bush's own Department of Health and Human Services.

Your tax dollars at work! The agency will spend some $50 million this year on its advertising campaign to glorify the program.

These "news packages" are called VNRs—video news releases—and they've been used for some time by corporations. Now our government is also spoon-feeding "news" to TV stations, which don't bother to identify the source of these packaged stories.

To help stop this dangerous combo of government propaganda and journalistic fraud, call the Committee for Concerned Journalists: 202-293-7394.