On Friday, July 25, 2008 a revealing and disturbing dialogue took place on MSNBC's Hardball. Scott McClellan, the former White House Press Secretary, clearly and repeatedly stated that the White House had methodically, deliberately, and covertly used sympathetic media figures - and in particular Fox News - to articulate Administration talking points in the national media. McClellan suggests that the Bush Administration has made a practice of feeding issues and prepared opinions to pundits and opinion leaders in the media thereby deputizing them into a network of ad hoc spokespeople for the White House.
MATTHEWS: Did you see FOX television as a tool when you were in the White House, as a useful avenue for getting your message out?
...
MATTHEWS:
Did people say, call Sean, call Bill,1 call whoever? Did you do that as a regular thing?MCCLELLAN: Certainly. Certainly. It wasn't necessarily something I was doing, but it was something that we at the White House, yes, were doing and getting them talking points and making sure they knew where we were coming from.
...
MATTHEWS: You were using these commentators as your spokespeople?
MCCLELLAN: Well, certainly. I mean, certainly.2
While the suggestion that the Bush White House has Fox News wrapped around its little finger is neither new nor terribly surprising, a direct and largely unacknowledged link could have more profound consequences. According to the Center for Media and Democracy Congress has been placing in its annual appropriation bills every year since 1951 [a provision that reads] "No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress."
The Center goes on to note that the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) defines "publicity or propaganda" as either (1) self-aggrandizement by public officials, (2) purely partisan activity, or (3) "covert propaganda." By covert propaganda, GAO means information which originates from the government but is unattributed and made to appear as though it came from a third party.
3 [emphasis added]
Covert Propaganda.
It is not that the Bush Administration makes contact with media outlets that is of concern however. It is that this contact is unreported and unacknowledged. There exists a real, ethical, and legal difference between a pundit or reporter citing a statement from the White House and that same pundit or reporter echoing that statement as if it were an organic and independent opinion reached through the normal journalistic process. Moreover, such unwarranted and (possibly) illegal influence in the media itself poisons the national dialogue. As Rachel Maddow, political analyst and Air America Radio host opined on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann:
It is one thing for the White House to say, "We like what FOX News does or we like what Rush Limbaugh does." It's another thing for them to use them as, Chris [Matthews], I think, rightly pointed out to Scott McClellan, to use them as spokespeople without acknowledging that's what they're doing. That's propaganda and it's supposed to be illegal.4
Indeed Olbermann himself claims to have received such talking points from the White House in 2004. Olbermann's July 29th statement that they [the White House] sent me a set of talking points, not fully understanding the nature of the show even in 2004, before I sat down and interviewed Joe Wilson
was in response to Bill O'Reilly's angry and accusatory denials of McClellans' claims on the Fox News personality's radio show.5 There, O'Reilly accused McClellan of being crazy
and a liar,
insisting that he had never received Administration talking points and that McClellan was making the whole thing up.
Whether Bill O'Reilly ever got them or not, Olbermann's claim to have received Administration talking points and his indication that hestill retains a copy gives additional credence to McClellan's claim. Skeptics of the MSNBC pundit might wonder why it took Mr. Olbermann - a vocal opponent of the Bush Administration - four days to make mention of such documents following McClellan's July 25th revelation and why he has remained quiet about them since 2004.
But the concern of Maddow and others in the political and journalistic community goes beyond simply the portrayal of White House talking points as the independent analysis of respected opinion leaders. Earlier in the same segment, Maddow had expressed concern for the pageant of journalism
exhibited on Fox News and other conservative media outlets, stating they would make it they would make it look like journalism and they would even call it journalism in some cases but it would be designed to advance the conservative movement['s] agenda.
6
The portrayal of opinion as fact and the blurring of the lines between hard reporting and political punditry has become the hallmark of the Fox News Channel and makes the White House's use of it as a mouthpiece for political propaganda all the more insidious. Fox does more than portray the the Bush Administration's talking points as its own organic opinions; it sets those ideas forward as fact.
After eight years of complacency - and as McClellan points out, complicity - on the part of the Murdoch-owned cable news network there is little question as to how Fox will handle these accusations. What remains to be seen is who in the John McCain campaign is talking to America's Pravda... and who is listening.
1. Note: O'Reilly later denied being fed talking points from the White House. When he confronted McClellan on this issue the former press secretary said "The truth is, I messed up. I was specifically not trying to single anyone out, including you"
2. Hardball With Chris Matthews - Friday, July 25
3. Center for Media and Democracy - Pentagon Pundit Scandal Broke the Law
4. Countdown with Keith Olbermann - Friday, July 25
5. Think Progress - Olbermann: White House sent me talking points too, 'I still have them.'
6. Countdown with Keith Olbermann - Friday, July 25.
