News phonies get just deserts

Editor's Note: This editorial appeared in Tuesday's Baltimore Sun.

CBS fired four officials Monday for their role in the broadcast of a report on President Bush's National Guard service that was based on bogus documents. Dan Rather, the veteran newsman who aired the report, had already announced he would retire early from his network anchor chair.

Armstrong Williams, the conservative commentator reported to have secretly accepted $240,000 from the Bush administration to promote its No Child Left Behind law, promptly lost his gig last week as a columnist syndicated by Tribune Media Services (which is owned by the company that publishes The Sun).

These consequences are appropriate when journalists, whether through competitive zeal, bad judgment or bias, abuse their public platform.

But what of the widespread use of taxpayer money by the Bush administration to phony up news accounts of its own?

Parallel initiatives to the $1 million Education Department publicity campaign that contracted with Mr. Armstrong were launched by at least two other federal agencies - Medicare and the Office of National Drug Control Policy - to produce and distribute material designed to look like independent press accounts.

To the extent that news organizations used any of this material without saying where it came from, shame on them. But the Bush administration's use of taxpayer dollars for what amounts to political campaign material promoting programs - which in the case of No Child Left Behind are chronically underfunded - is more than a shame; it's illegal.

According to the Government Accountability Office, the independent investigative arm of Congress, the administration's prepackaged videos featuring "announcers" and "reporters," who appear to be reporting on the government without revealing they are actors working for the government, amount to "covert propaganda" in violation of long-standing prohibitions.

Medicare's use of such phony videos created an uproar early last year when dozens of local television stations aired them without attribution, yet the tactic continued to be used by education officials and the federal drug czar.

The Bush administration should immediately fess up to how many purportedly independent commentators it has on the payroll and how many more agencies are using public money to deceive taxpayers.

CBS and Mr. Williams' employers have applied some harsh medicine to deal with the journalistic transgressions. The architect of the Bush administration's propaganda machine ought to get the boot as well.