Covert Media

Welcome to Orwell's 1984.

NYT: "To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications." [NYT] [Kos] [Tribune] [CAP] [Orwell] [Tribune2]

Media Matters has a great section on this, from Gannon, to Payola, to excellence in punditry. [MediaMatters]

Oh, and apparently the left is now reaching out to the mainstream media through blogs: "The bloggers, who describe themselves as liberal or progressive, say the conference calls are intended to counter what they regard as the much stronger influence of conservative pundits online. Bob Fertik, president of Democrats.com, the host of the two calls so far, views them as a step toward getting their reports out to mainstream news organizations." [NYT]