Tuesday, April 06, 2004

Every once in a while I wish this blog were read more widely

Such as this observation:

There's a new phenomenon on the airwaves (new to me, anyhoo) called the Video News Release (VNR), which, as I understand it, is a pre-packaged TV piece that's transmitted to broadcasting stations as a news item, and is broadcast to the public as such (it's format and tone appears as such, too), but it's really a really a disguised plug, sometimes for a commercial product, sometimes for something more insidious. For example, a governmental program, supporting (you guessed it) Bush/Cheney.

Now B/C have been caught, however. A woman playing a reporter, "reporting" on the benefits of the prescription drug benefit in the newly-enacted Medicare amendment, wasn't a reporter at all, but rather a part-time actress/publicist of the Bush administration. Using public money to plug the President. Another example of Big Brother Bush, controlling the media, the corporations, the government and the money. It's unlikely this practice will be stopped before the election in November, which is of course B/C's purpose.

If Bush isn't re-elected it will be the biggest triumph of democracy ever. And if he is re-elected, we may not see democracy again in the United States in our (my) lifetime.

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