Yet another sign that The Party is intent on imposing its will:

WASHINGTON, May 1 - The Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is aggressively pressing public television to correct what he and other conservatives consider liberal bias, prompting some public broadcasting leaders - including the chief executive of PBS - to object that his actions pose a threat to editorial independence.

Without the knowledge of his board, the chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, contracted last year with an outside consultant to keep track of the guests' political leanings on one program, "Now With Bill Moyers."

In late March, on the recommendation of administration officials, Mr. Tomlinson hired the director of the White House Office of Global Communications as a senior staff member, corporation officials said. While she was still on the White House staff, she helped draft guidelines governing the work of two ombudsmen whom the corporation recently appointed to review the content of public radio and television broadcasts.

Mr. Tomlinson also encouraged corporation and public broadcasting officials to broadcast "The Journal Editorial Report," whose host, Paul Gigot, is editor of the conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. And while a search firm has been retained to find a successor for Kathleen A. Cox, the corporation's president and chief executive, whose contract was not renewed last month, Mr. Tomlinson has made clear to the board that his choice is Patricia Harrison, a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee who is now an assistant secretary of state.

It's really hard to see this as benign, as Tomlinson claims. It may be time for me to get shrill again.

Billmon has sussed it out. And unfortunately, I don't think there's a bit of tinfoil in his narrative -- just the natural logic of power and and an example of the dynamics of competition when interest groups obtain political controls over markets. A cautionary reminder for Democrats as well, I should add, even when they rationalize their own interventions as being on the side of angels.

The Washington Post has a
good editorial today:

WHAT DOES Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" have in common with the Bush administration? They're both unabashed about putting out fake news. The Bush administration's version consists of video news releases -- government-produced, government-funded spots packaged to look and sound like regular television reports, complete with fake news reporters signing off from Washington. These are intended to be, and often are, aired by local television stations without any indication that the government is behind them. The Government Accountability Office found this kind of phony news to be impermissible "covert propaganda." It warned the government last month that such prepackaged news stories must be accompanied by a "clear disclosure to the television viewing audience" of the government's involvement. The Bush administration is now instructing its officials to ignore the GAO -- which is where (in addition to the question of comedic content) the administration and Mr. Stewart diverge. He wants you to know his news is phony.

Although this administration apparently isn't the first to use video news releases, it seems more enamored of them than its predecessors. For example: A spot commissioned by the Transportation Security Administration lauds "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security," which the "reporter" describes as "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history."

It's humiliating that local news stations, however short-staffed and desperate for footage, would allow themselves to be used this way. Indeed, as the New York Times reported Sunday, some have even lopped off government attribution when it was included or pretended the government reporter was one of their own. Even so, it's disingenuous for administration officials to blame the stations, given that many releases are crafted precisely to disguise their government origin.

This technique is both illegal and unwise. As a legal matter, the prepackaged news releases run afoul of the prohibition on the use of government funds for domestic "propaganda." The administration's interpretation -- it's okay to hide the source as long as the spot is "purely informational" -- is untenable: Highlighting some "facts" and leaving out others can be even more persuasive than outright advocacy, which is why the administration chose this device. More important, this kind of propaganda masquerading as news is a deceitful way for a democratic government to do business; fake journalists paid by the government to deliver its version of news are as disturbing as real commentators paid by the government to tout its views. White House press secretary Scott McClellan defended the video news releases on Monday as "an informational tool to provide factual information to the American people." Nice sentiment, but why, exactly, wouldn't the administration want to let the people in on one of the most salient facts: who, really, is doing the talking?

Bush was finally asked about this practice at one of his rare press conferences:

Q Mr. President, earlier this year, you told us you wanted your administration to cease and desist on payments to journalists to promote your agenda. You cited the need for ethical concerns and the need for bright line between the press and the government. Your administration continue to make the use of video news releases, which is prepackaged news stories sent to television stations, fully aware that some -- or many of these stations will air them without any disclaimer that they are produced by the government. The Comptroller General of the United States, this week, said that raises ethical questions. Does it raise ethical questions about the use of government money to produce stories about the government that wind up being aired with no disclosure that they were produced by the government?

THE PRESIDENT: There is a Justice Department opinion that says these -- these pieces are within the law, so long as they're based upon facts, not advocacy. And I expect our agencies to adhere to that ruling, to that Justice Department opinion. This has been a longstanding practice of the federal government to use these types of videos. The Agricultural Department, as I understand it, has been using these videos for a long period of time. The Defense Department, other departments have been doing so. It's important that they be based on the guidelines set out by the Justice Department.

Now, I also -- I think it would be helpful if local stations then disclosed to their viewers that that's -- that this was based upon a factual report, and they chose to use it. But evidently, in some cases, that's not the case. So, anyway.

Q The administration could guarantee that's happening by including that language in the pre-packaged report.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I don't -- oh, you mean a disclosure, "I'm George W. Bush, and I" --

Q Well, some way to make sure it couldn't air without the disclosure that you believe is so vital.

THE PRESIDENT: You know, Ken, there's a procedure that we're going to follow, and the local stations ought to -- if there's a deep concern about that, ought to tell their viewers what they're watching.

Weak, weak stuff for the leader of the free world.

Meanwhile, Friends of the Earth has uncovered more deliberately misleading VNRs.

This is, to put it mildy, an embarrassing situation for the world's oldest democracy. I'm wondering where the so-called libertarians are on this one.

(thanks to dKos for the links)

Publius has been on a roll lately, what with Sir Bork rescuing the fair maiden Original Understanding from the evil denizens of the Enchanted Liberal Forest and Publius himself tracing a path back to the foundation on which liberalism stands. So I can't call today's contribution "the best," but it's well worth a read, both for entertainment value and for a sober message.

Let me set the scene. This is the entr'acte before the curtain rises on Act II of our Social Security drama. After Act I, during which the Democrats have for most purposes won on the grounds that the emperor's wardrobe is empty, the story shifts to a search for new ways for the Democrats to defeat themselves. In this scene, a nice little bait-and-switch farce, the punditocracy has become complicit, even if unwitting in some cases. And here the pundits find themselves on much more comfortable ground -- not substance, mind you, but opining on the elaborate gavotte of power politics. They know the notes, and they're singing them from the chorus, but Publius to their distress isn't following the score. So they sing even louder the inevitable calls for a gesture from the victorious of "compromise for the greater good" -- though in this case it seems a bit premature given the fragility of the apparent victory in what has been so far merely a minor skirmish in Act I.

As Publius warns, compromise is only possible if two sides are basically talking about the same thing. When they're not, suggestions of compromise are simply... well, read it.

For those of you interested in the Senate hearings on the legislation to update the FOIA being sponsored by Sens Cornyn and Leahy, they begin at 10:00AM EST today (Tuesday March 15) and can be heard via streaming audio at the CapitolHearings.org site that CSPAN runs for Senate hearings. Just scroll down to Judiciary -- Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security Subcommittee.

In the spirit of Sunshine Week, I've decided to come out of my hidey-hole as regards domestic policy and recommend this piece by Josh Marshall. Reading it has left me with a palpable sense of disgust and powerlessness. What can I do about it? I'm pretty damn sure that destroying NPR is not the answer.

I can't help but think that MoveOn.org really ought to be training its guns on this broader issue rather than on the John Bolton nomination, as lousy a choice as he seems to be. Likewise, the ACLU is busy suing Donald Rumsfeld. I suppose it's not a question of either/or and Bolton and Rumsfeld are surely worthy of attention in many ways, but still, I find it odd that what seems to really animate both organizations is opposition to the Bush administration's foreign policy rather than the underlying culture that enables it--call it Pravdafication, Putinization, whatever. Maybe DailyKos will awaken from its self-indulgent navel-gazing and pitch in?

{update to fix typo & double-posting}

... of open, accountable government and our system of checks and balances -- including the press -- doing its job, there's this side-splitting piece of work from the normally rather staid Independent Institute, courtesy MaxSpeaks.

But then again, as Eric Martin asks, "Why bother to revise history when you can bury it?"

A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or perhaps both. President James Madison

If I were a betting woman, I'd say it's pretty good odds that most bloggers aren't aware that today marks opening day of the first national Sunshine Week. What, you may ask, is Sunshine Week? The NYT sums it up as " a weeklong campaign for government openness spearheaded by the AP and more than 50 news outlets, journalism groups, universities and the American Library Association."

The whole thing got started in 2002 with Sunshine Sunday in Florida, an initiative to heighten public awareness of the importance of access to information and government accountability in the wake of 9/11, which had opened the floodgates for some "particularly egregious open government exemptions" considered by the Florida state legislature. As Barbara Patterson, who helped organize the first Sunshine Sunday, explains in American Editor (pdf p. 10), the newsletter of the American Society of Newspaper Editors:

Any opposition to the proposed bills was summarily dismissed by sponsors and lobbyists as a “press problem,” even though most of the proposals raised serious constitutional issues and would have curtailed the public’s ability to hold its government accountable. A “press” problem?

Since the first Sunshine Sunday -- selected as the Sunday before James Madison's birthday, which is National Freedom of Information Day -- several other states have joined in. The impact in Florida has been considerable, if measured by the new-found sensitivity of both state legislators and the public, which voted overwhelmingly in the 2002 general election for a measure limiting the ability of the legislature to restrict open access. Probably most important, according to Patterson:

Legislators and other key government officials have begun to realize that being tagged as a supporter of open government is a good thing.

The recognition that being seen as an open government advocate is good for your political health seems to be slowly catching on in Washington as well -- on both sides of the aisle. Here's Sen John Cornyn (R-Texas) in an op-ed he penned for Sunshine Week about the new FOIA legislation he and Sen Leahy are introducing.

Just last month, U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), a longtime champion of open government at the federal level, and I joined forces to introduce the OPEN Government Act of 2005, to strengthen and enhance our federal open government laws. It has been nearly a decade since Congress has approved major reforms to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). And the Senate Judiciary Committee has not convened an oversight hearing to monitor compliance with FOIA since 1992. So this week, I will chair a Senate hearing to examine needed improvements to our open government laws.

The legislation we introduced contains important Congressional findings to reiterate and reinforce our belief that the Freedom of Information Act establishes a presumption of openness, and that our government is based not on the need to know, but upon the fundamental right to know.
[...]
Moreover, our legislation is not just pro-openness, pro-accountability, and pro-accessibility—it is also pro-Internet. It requires government agencies to establish a hotline to enable citizens to track their FOIA requests, including Internet tracking, and grants the same privileged FOIA fee status currently enjoyed by traditional media outlets to bloggers and others who publish reports on the Internet. [ed. emph added]

There are actually two pieces of proposed legislation being sponsored by Cornyn and Leahy: the OPEN Government Act of 2005, announced Feb 16, and the Faster FOIA Act introduced March 10. The latter bill would establish a 16-member advisory Commission on Freedom of Information Act Processing Delays, which would report back within a year to Congress and the President on ways to reduce delays (including fee issues) in the processing of FOIA requests.

Now the last bit -- that bloggers may get reduced FOIA fees -- seems to have permeated the blogosphere's collective consciousness. However, the big brouhaha about blogging-press-government relations has been over the Apple litigation, covered here by Donna Wentwoth at CopyFight. Most of the other blogging-press-government flap-a-doodle has been devoted to the FEC-related firestorms (so far more smoke than fire). But a quick Googling didn't find much attention by the blogosphere to the FOIA initiatives, beyond an effort launched last week by the student activist IP-oriented site FreeCulture.org to promote a blogshine Sunday. And CopyFight is one of the few spots I've found with a blogshine.org button and blogging about the Cornyn-Leahy legislation.

The public's access to information and -- equally important -- how information intermediaries and consumers choose to use that information, ought to be a major focus of the blogosphere of "ideas," whether politics or science and technology, medicine, environment, social services, law and law enforcement, labor relations, financial services, education, you name it. For the great majority of blogs that aren't engaged directly in electoral politics or who don't see themselves competing with "journalists," the ability to access the vast amount of information that federal, state and local governments have collected, analyzed and archived is far more important than the debates over "who is a journalist" and whether/how blogs will be regulated if they support partisan activities.

The first reason why open access is important is the "business model" issue. If blogs are to be something more than partisan voices or provide more than entertaining critiques of stories developed in the mainstream commercial media, one major type of blogging will be digging into substantive topics requiring some background knowledge, pulling disparate pieces together, and bringing stories and analysis to a broader audience of interested readers. These are the sorts of activities that few news organizations can afford these days, or at least not on the range of subjects that the blogosphere is capable of covering.

Niche blogs offer the prospect of important stories being identified, fleshed out and debated with attention to detail by people who are knowledgeable about the subject area even if their "business" isn't blogging. Bloggers, unlike most news organizations, also have the ability to stay with a story that interests them for a long time, even after it's moved off the "hot" list.

But the success of this model of blogging depends on widespread, low cost access to raw material -- information. Collecting information isn't the blogosphere's competitive advantage -- that remains and will remain, even with the advent of citizens media, the competitive advantage of commercial media in many instances (though whether they will exploit that advantage is a different matter). But the public sector is also a major source of that raw material. Open access to information in the hands of governments is a critical element of this emerging role of the blogosphere going forward.

The second reason why open access is important is the "functioning democracy" issue, where the blogosphere has an important potential role to play in the coming years. I count myself among those concerned about info-tainment increasingly dominating much of what passes for news and analysis, as well as the trend for government and corporate communication machinery to find congenial forums to pass off counterfeit "objective" information to suit their persuasion agendas.

I also believe, however, that the impulse to counter these trends with ownership or content rules is often a misguided one. Rules are easily gamed by those they are supposed to control or, when the rules are binding, turn out to have some unfortunate unintended consequences. More often than not, the benefits of new rules inure to those with vested interests, unless the changes are truly revolutionary, and then the outcomes are likely to be highly unpredictable.

Technology and the changing economics of media are, in fact, offering the beginnings of a revolution. I was intrigued by a recent analogy attributed to Joe Trippi, that blogging and e-media today are about where we were with television in 1955 when it comes to politics. That suggests lots and lots of changes ahead, not just in content and technology of communication itself, but in all sorts of social structures and patterns about how we use different forms of media and what we expect from them.

I for one would prefer to focus on enabling that revolution. Opening more space for ideas, and ensuring open access to and flow of information, seems to me preferable to trying to make the existing large commercial information gatekeepers perform "better." This is especially the case as the very gatekeeping role for large corporate media is being redefined with technology and competition, and the cost of producing and distributing ideas and information is declining so dramatically.

So with that lecture on why sunshine is important to all of us -- as both citizens and bloggers -- here's some info on what's on tap for Sunshine Week. Of course, check out the extensive website that the sponsors of Sunshine Week have assembled, including calendars of goings on all over the country. They've got lots of great background material on the First Amendment and FOIA as well as "toolkits" (articles, op-eds and even editorial cartoons) for their participating newspapers to run. AND you can order your very own bright yellow "sunshine in government" wristbands. Knew you wouldn't want to pass that one up.

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings are on Tuesday, March 15 at 10:00AM. Editor & Publisher has a summary of some of the events scheduled for Sunshine Week in various locations. Here in DC, in addition to the hearings that are being held by Cornyn et al on Tuesday, the big events are:

The National FOI Day Conference will be held March 16 at the Freedom Forum's center in Arlington, Virginia. Speakers include Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), Cox Washington bureau chief Andy Alexander, and First Amendment attorney Lee Levine. The event is free and open to the public.

A symposium titled "Confronting the Seduction of Secrecy: Toward Improved Government Access on the Record" will be held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on March 17. The event will begin at 8:30 a.m. with a continental breakfast and conclude at 10:45 a.m. This is the 5th Annual Curtis Hurley Symposium and is co-sponsored by the Missouri School of Journalism. The event will be moderated by Geneva Overholser and will feature as panelists Bill Kovach, Tom Curley, Mike McCurry, Jack Shafer, and others. For more information or to register, e-mail Billie Dukes at dukesb@missouri.edu.

Coming up next on chez Nadezhda for Sunshine Week -- "how to get Congress to walk the walk" -- or how to save poor Steven Aftergood from the totally unnecessary chore of being our sole online source of Congressional Research Service reports, which are controlled by our elected representatives to dole out when it makes them look good or makes a constituent happy.

{March 14 12:56AM EST -- updated to correct graphics & links; added several links & trackbacks}

In a comment over at LibsAT, I commended a recent Newsweek article within the context of the "MSM" coverage of Iraqi politics. And was brought up short by co-blogger Haggai, who noted "MSM" made him a bit uncomfortable, given its association with wingnut paranoia.

I take the objection seriously. It's somewhat like those perennial favorites, freedom, democracy, opportunity and compassion. "MSM" has been hijacked by the war-blogging and Bushite right, and it's not clear how/whether we can rehabilitate it.

If my memory serves, the expression started off fairly neutral in partisan terms. Criticism of what was passing for political news and analysis by the leading news organizations and their associated punditry certainly wasn't confined to the right hemisphere of blogdom. True, there was even then the subtext of the "liberal media bias," but there was a counterbalancing "vicious right-wing conspiracy." Critiques of the structural inadequacies of the MSM, to which in part the blogosphere was a noisy response, were shared across the political spectrum.

Even now, some of the best critiques continue to come from a diverse collection of endangered species, ranging from centrists to moderate progressives and farther points left, whether the Howler or Campaign Desk. But now the triumphantalist right -- led by the Hewitts, Powerlines and Instys -- has hijacked both "year of the blog" and its enemy, the MSM, turning the label into a self-referential meme. [BTW -- Jay Rosen's series of takes on the Eason debacle -- together with his AfterMatters and comment threads on the posts -- are very much worth reading for a broader perspective on the changing rule sets for journalism and the press in an age of instant communication].

So what's an author to do? If you want a value-neutral short-hand reference for that collection of media organizations that used to be known as MSM?

Rosen has done a good deal of thinking on the subject, but has yet to hit on a result I find compelling. For example, for a time a common alternative was the "legacy media" tag, with its embedded presumption of the inevitable outcome of a battle-to-the-death between "new" vs "old." It may be a useful (though biased) way of conducting a debate about the future of journalism, but too narrowly cast and too value-judgment-rich to be a neutral label. So that's no good.

As a public service to discourse, I think we need to devise and actively disseminate another acronym. My options so far are CNOs -- commercial news organizations; and MCM -- mass commercial media. Neither is exactly catchy and each has its limitations. So I'm wide open to suggestions.

But I need something that's max 4 letters. One must admit the newest competitor to "MSM" is equal-opportunity --note it targets those incidious "Lefto-Conservative" types. But I get lost in Ss & Ms in SCLCMMSMM. [hat tip prak]

Let us not, in our enthusiasm about yesterday's Iraqi elections and democracy generally, ignore the creeping threats to our freedom here at home.

This article bothers me a lot:

I was among those who was assigned a little friend. Or to be precise, I was monitored for about half of the inaugural party I was covering for The Post. For the first couple of hours of the Independence Ball, I roamed the vast width and length of the Washington Convention Center hall dangerously unescorted.

I had arrived early to get a head start on mingling among the roughly 6,000 people eating and dancing to celebrate the president's reelection. Unaware of the new escort policy (it wasn't in place during the official parties following the 2001 inauguration), I blithely assumed that in the world's freest nation, I was free to walk around at will and ask the happy partygoers such national security-jeopardizing questions as, "Are you having a good time?"

Big mistake. After cruising by the media pen -- a sectioned-off area apparently designed for corralling journalists -- a sharp-eyed volunteer spotted my media badge. "You're not supposed to go out there without an escort," she said.

I replied that I had been doing just fine without one, and walked over to a quiet corner of the hall to phone in some anecdotes to The Post's Style desk.

As I was dictating from my notes, something flashed across my face and neatly snatched my cell phone from of my hand. I looked up to confront a middle-aged woman, her face afire with rage. "You ignored the rules, and I'm throwing you out!" she barked, snapping my phone shut. "You told that girl you didn't need an escort. That's a lie! You're out of here!"

With the First Amendment on the line, my natural wit did not fail me. "Huh?" I answered.

Recovering quickly, I explained that I had been unaware of the escort policy. She was unbending and ordered a couple of security guards to hustle me out. I appealed to them, saying that I was more than happy to follow whatever ground rules had been laid down. They shrugged, and deposited me back in the media pen.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: On a related note, Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard appears to despise democracy.