Mainstream Media Discovers Buggery

We now have solid proof that the Mainstream Media has discovered that for the last four years the Bush Administration has been playing it like a cheap prostitute in need of his next fix.

In the promotion of its agenda, the Bush administration has repeatedly tested the boundaries of media manipulation.

President Bush (news - web sites)'s agencies have employed tactics such as hiring television and newspaper columnists to promote his programs that even the president has disavowed.

"Whether you call it news control or manipulation of information or political spin to some degree depends on the position one is standing in," says Bob Steele, a media scholar at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla. "If we have a critical eye on the administration, we are more likely to be pejorative with our assessment."
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A Jan. 4 letter to congressional leaders from the GAO's general counsel noted that "many television news organizations are willing to use [prepackaged news stories] since they help broadcasters reduce the cost of gathering and producing news." But the agency concluded that they violated 55-year-old rules against government spending on propaganda.

Major media outlets could have saved some taxpayers some trouble and money and just published reports that they have fucked-up just about everything since Bush started playing on their need to be loved, not to mention the jonesin' for that next fix.