Washington Post reports that the issue of transparency and news dissemination is getting a little murky in DC:

The Bush administration, rejecting an opinion from the Government Accountability Office, said last week that it is legal for federal agencies to feed TV stations prepackaged news stories that do not disclose the government’s role in producing them.

That message, in memos sent Friday to federal agency heads and general counsels, contradicts a Feb. 17 memo from Comptroller General David M. Walker. Walker wrote that such stories — designed to resemble independently reported broadcast news stories so that TV stations can run them without editing — violate provisions in annual appropriations laws that ban covert propaganda.

We appear to have a right to do propaganda, but what about covert propaganda?

The legal counsel’s office "does not agree with GAO that the covert propaganda prohibition applies simply because an agency’s role in producing and disseminating information is undisclosed or ‘covert,’ regardless of whether the content of the message is ‘propaganda,’ " Bradbury wrote. "Our view is that the prohibition does not apply where there is no advocacy of a particular viewpoint, and therefore it does not apply to the legitimate provision of information concerning the programs administered by an agency."

GIVE ME A BREAK! They really believe these VNRs – with PR people pretending to work as baggage screeners – and packed full of propaganda – represent pure reporting – by that I mean, the don’t advocate a particular viewpoint. Well, in that case, lets get rid of the media all together.

I need to go cool-down somewhere… the parting quote from the story says it all…

"Whether in the form of a payment to an actual journalist, or through the creation of a fake one, it is wrong to deceive the public with the creation of phony news stories," the lawmakers wrote

Tran