Under President Bush, at least 20 different federal agencies have produced “prepackaged, ready-to-serve” reports that are distributed to hundreds of television stations, such as Fox 13 in Memphis, TN or WCIA 3 in Champaign, IL. These reports are often broadcast on television news programs without disclosing that the segments are produced and paid for by the US federal government.
The investigation by The New York Times showed that the Bush administration has spent unprecedented sums of money on these fake news programs and has already paid PR firms more than $254 million to create this programming. Source: The New York Times, 3/13/2005, “Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged News”
Web link of note: Stop Fake News
(At http://www.stopfakenews.org)