On March 11, the Justice Department informed agencies they could ignore that finding, advising them that the prohibition on propaganda "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."

On Monday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan, when asked about the controversy over government video news releases, stressed the "importance of making sure that it is factual information and not crossing the line into advocacy."

Both of the administration's standards -- that news releases be accurate and that they avoid advocating just one position -- fall well short of industry norms. The Public Relations Society of America, for example, offers these instructions regarding video news releases:

"1. Organizations that produce VNRs should clearly identify the VNR as such and fully disclose who produced and paid for it at the time the VNR is provided to TV stations.

"2. Organizations that prepare VNRs should not use the word 'reporting' if the narrator is not a reporter.

"3. Use of VNRs or footage provided by sources other than the station or network should be identified as to source by the media outlet when it is aired."

The now-famous Karen Ryan news release violated two of those three guidelines -- by using the word "reporting" and by not identifying the source of the segment when it was aired in 40 markets.

In regard to that release, administration officials argue that the report could easily have been edited by local producers, who, for instance, could have stripped out Ryan's audio, including the "reporting" tag, and inserted their own voice-over. If there was any confusion about the report, they say, it was the fault of the producers, who were told the newslike segment was made by the government. "TV producers who receive our material are clearly aware where it comes from," says Bill Pierce, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. "To hold us accountable for ethical news judgment is a bit difficult to understand," he says.

Bud Veazey, assistant news director at WAGA in Atlanta, which last year inadvertently ran two Ryan news releases in their entirety, concedes the media "bears some responsibility." In the cases in which the Ryan release aired unedited, station executives say it was mostly because of an inexperienced or hurried producer who was scrambling to fill airtime and who did not realize the satellite-fed release was in fact government produced. But Veazey agrees with the GAO that to avoid any further confusion video releases should be more clearly marked. "I want them identified in the script. I understand why people don't want to do it, because stations would be reluctant to air it directly off the satellite. But you need honest disclosure."

In its 2004 ruling, the GAO took issue with the notion that if the government makes journalists aware that it is the source of information, then the government cannot be accused of illegally distributing propaganda. The GAO noted, "In our case law, findings of propaganda are predicated upon the fact that the target audience could not ascertain the information source." Referring to a case involving the Small Business Administration in the 1980s, it said, "For example, we found government-prepared editorials to be covert propaganda; although the newspapers who would have printed the suggested editorials should have been aware of the source, the reading public would not have been aware of the source." The SBA had created editorials to run on Op-Ed pages across the country in support of President Reagan's proposal to transfer the SBA to the Department of Commerce. While newspaper editors may have been aware of the origin of the essays, the readers -- the target audience -- were not. Therefore, the GAO ruled, the SBA-prepared editorials violated the ban on propaganda.

The GAO found the same to be true of Ryan's video news releases: "The story packages, similar to the SBA editorials, could be reproduced with no alteration, thereby allowing the targeted audience to believe that the information came from a nongovernment source or neutral party."

Pierce at HHS declined to say whether future agency video news releases would include identification in the scripts, but insisted, "We've always been above board."

But Walker at the GAO remains miffed. "I don't understand why somebody would not try to comply with the guidance. Things like ethics should matter. Our job as public servants is to do what's right with the taxpayers' money."

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