A Jan. 25 WorldNetDaily column by Andrea Shea King carried the headline “Feds controlling media? It’s been done before.” King highlighted a claim that “the Department of Justice has hired bloggers as propagandists and sock puppets,” likening it to the 1940s “Operation Mockingbird” as an example of “behind-the-scenes media manipulation.”
Unmentioned by King were examples of “media manipulation” under the Bush administration:
- As we’ve noted, columnist Armstrong Williams accepted $240,000 from the U.S. Department of Education to promote the No Child Left Behind education policy through his TV appearances and in his syndicated radio and TV shows and his newspaper column.
- Columnist Maggie Gallagher had received tens of thousands of dollars from the Department of Health and Human Services during 2002 and 2003 for helping the Bush administration promote the President’s Healthy Marriage Initiative.
- Retired military officers were used by the Pentagon to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance.
Interesting how conservatives get a pass for disseminating propaganda from King and WND, while others don’t.