Watchdog dubs Bush TV packages 'illegal'

The Bush administration was guilty of spreading “covert propaganda” through a series of ready-made television “news” packages it sent to broadcasters, a US government watchdog has concluded.

The General Accounting Office (GAO), an arm of Congress, also declared that the adverts breached federal law.

The ready-made news items praised a new law, signed by President George Bush in December, which the White House has said will make it easier for elderly Americans to obtain prescribed medicines.

In some of the features there are pictures of Mr Bush receiving a standing ovation from a crowd as he signed the “Medicare” law.

The packages were produced by the Department of Health and Human Services, but news viewers would have no way of knowing they were watching a Government-produced story rather than an independent news report.

They were screened by at least 40 television stations in several states, including Oklahoma and Louisiana.

Two of the videos end with the voice of a woman who says: “In Washington, I’m Karen Ryan reporting.”

The GAO said the adverts broke laws forbidding public money being used for propaganda purposes.

It added that viewers would “believe that the information came from a non-government source or neutral party”.

In a report, the body said the packages were “not strictly factual news stories” and there were “notable omissions and weaknesses”.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which helped make the videos, said TV stations should have identified that the government agency was the source.

But the GAO said the tapes were “misleading as to source”.

“Some news organisations indicated that they misread the label or they mistook the story package as an independent journalist news story,” the report said.

It was not immediately known what penalties government agencies may face for the breach.

The GAO is relatively toothless, with no power to enforce the law, but its recommendations on spending are influential.

David Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States, who is head of the GAO, said: “We do not have reason to believe that this violation was knowing and wilful, and we are not in the enforcement business.”