Pentagon media manipulation and the law

Some analysis by Sheldon Rampton, director of the Center for Media and Democracy, on the “Pentagon Pundit Scandal” and whether or not the secret PR campaign conducted by the administration to market the war in Iraq was not only unethical, but illegal as well.

According to Rampton, the recently uncovered program which involved a special office in the Defense Department that coordinated and coached self-professed “independent” military analysts appearing on television on what to say so as to spin the Iraq war in a favorable light, violates “[S]pecific restrictions that Congress has been placing in its annual appropriation bills every year since 1951. According to those restrictions, “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.”

Furthermore, it was specific concerns about “covert propaganda” initiatives conducted by branches of the government like the one in question which led to the GAO’s strong standard for determining when government-funded video news releases constitute propaganda and therefore illegal.

I find it quite interesting, although unfortunately not particularly surprising, that despite the gravity of the lawbreaking this program likely entails it is receiving only the most cursory of media coverage.

Hopefully, the eventual Democratic presidential nominee and the DNC will make this a major part of their attack on the Republican party on whose watch these transgressions occurred.