
Too often, the government uses its information machinery to try to persuade - spking
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/09/24/the-new-propaganda-how-the-american-government-is-trying-to-control-what-you-think/
======
dalke
They left out the practice of newspapers using terms like 'unnamed official
close to':

> An official close to Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright said ....
> "This is not an easy report" for the Clinton administration, said another
> senior U.S. official last night. - [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
> srv/inatl/longterm/eafricab...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
> srv/inatl/longterm/eafricabombing/stories/security010899.htm)

> A law enforcement official close to the case said prosecutors considered
> charging several ­Fokker employees but decided against it. -
> [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
> security/dutch...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
> security/dutch-aerospace-company-fokker-hit-with-21-million-fine-in-
> sanctions-case/2014/06/05/c2890542-ecbd-11e3-b98c-72cef4a00499_story.html)

> The decision -- which was also met with wariness on Capitol Hill -- reflects
> a desire to change the intelligence power structure, officials close to the
> selection said yesterday. -- [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
> dyn/content/article/2009/01...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
> dyn/content/article/2009/01/05/AR2009010503050.html)

These are often cases where the government is trying to control what you
think; perhaps because the unnamed official will be retaliated against for not
toeing the government line, but also because it's exchanging anonymous
influence for access.

A newspaper could decline these unnamed sources a platform for their anonymous
influence, but then the reporters will find they don't get the juicy
interviews.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Here in the UK, an example is the Snowden 'blood on his hands' story in the
_Sunday Times_ : [https://theintercept.com/2015/06/14/sunday-times-report-
snow...](https://theintercept.com/2015/06/14/sunday-times-report-snowden-
files-journalism-worst-also-filled-falsehoods/)

~~~
dalke
A masterful essay. Thanks for the pointer.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Seconded. Fantastic piece.

------
geofft
> But this reform would be even more helpful if it required agencies to cite
> and share the sources for their “facts.” Where, for example, are the
> Department of Labor data that prove hot dog venders [sic] earn less than $9
> an hour?

This smells funny. Why are there scare quotes around "facts"? Why is there a
demand to prove that we're not getting duped by the revolving door between the
government and Big Hot Dog?

One of the authors is a "senior fellow at the R Street Institute," a
conservative think tank in DC. So naturally, it's in the author's interest to
write a propaganda essay discrediting the liberal executive branch and
poisoning the well, and publish it in the expanded op-ed section of a DC
newspaper.

This is just recursive politics, trying to pretend it's not.

~~~
JackFr
"Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton’s 1791 report on manufacturing promoted
policies to grow the nation into a commercial republic. President Woodrow
Wilson’s Committee on Public Information recruited 75,000 members of the
public to give speeches in favor of such World War I measures as Liberty Bonds
and the draft, blanketed the nation with pamphlets and posters, and generally
set in motion the modern publicity apparatus that exists today

A decade ago, the Government Accountability Office faulted the second Bush
administration’s Department of Health and Human Services for overselling the
benefits of the new Medicare law."

Hardly a propaganda essay discrediting the _liberal_ executive branch.

~~~
geofft
Well, if you want to draw partisan lines on content, all of those are
seemingly big-government actions (which is natural, for things that government
would want to propagandize): governmental policies to influence the market to
behave in certain ways, intervention in foreign wars, and centralized,
taxpayer-funded healthcare that was controversial within the Republican ranks.

This is metapolitics, designed to poison the well about all government actions
and support conservative/libertarian positions in general. It's fine and
useful to appear to be independent of partisan politics.

~~~
dropit_sphere
Is an opinion still valid if Republicans happen to share it?

~~~
mattsahr
Absolutely. But a think tank is an opinions-for-hire racket, whether
conservative or liberal. So it's useful to note the source.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
During the Scottish independence referendum last year, both the UK Government
and the Scottish Government produced materials trying to persuade voters,
BuzzFeed articles and pamphlets; and a white paper, respectively.

I probably don't need to tell you which sides the respective governments were
taking.

------
jessriedel
> In 2014, the government spent $760 million to hire private advertising
> firms, according to USASpending.gov...That figure does not include the
> salaries of the innumerable federal employees who promote their agencies’
> work in print, on air and online. It does not include the anti-drug media
> campaigns, or the cost of printing and publishing reports and government
> journals, such as the Federal Highway Administration’s Public Roads
> magazine.

For comparison, each of the presidential candidate spent a much more widely
discussed ~$2 billion together on the 2012 campaign.

[https://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/#out](https://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/#out)

------
ganeumann
I think there's a difference between, say, NASA tweeting about its mission and
other examples the article uses.

If NASA isn't promoting the mission it's been tasked to do, telling us about
their progress and their challenges, then who will? NASA telling the public
this stuff is part of their job, so the public knows. Also, it's not hard to
deduce what NASA's slant on going to space is: of course they're for it. It's
easy for us to interpret the message in light of the messenger.

------
rntz
Core problem:

> Unfortunately, it otherwise has proven all but impossible to write a law
> that absolutely differentiates information from advocacy.

~~~
asuffield
Are they really different things? I inform, you advocate, he spews lies and
deception.

Just sounds like different perspectives on the same action.

------
current_call
_Several years before, in 1997, the GAO caught the State Department paying a
consultant to write op-ed pieces in support of the Clinton administration’s
policy on Central America._

This is terrible. What will all the Washington Post journalists do for work if
some sleazy internet spam company gets all the juicy government contracts?

------
rm_-rf_slash
If the government didn't spread its propaganda, then private institutions and
individuals would be free to disseminate their own. It's not about controlling
or avoiding the conversation, just being part of it. The administration in any
government - democracy or otherwise - has a reasonable self-interest in
persuading the public to support its goals. As long as claims can be verified
as such, I don't see why it's a problem.

Exception: someone could make a bold-faced lie to a large audience for
sensation and later make their honest correction in a place nobody would look.

------
hackeraccount
I think that there's a un-elected bureaucracy and then there're elected
officials. I don't really have a problem with the elected officials trying to
persuade. I don't have a huge problem with them trying to persuade using the
bureaucracy as a tool.

Sometimes though it seems like the tool has a mind of it's own. That it either
has it's own agenda or doesn't heel to the agenda of the elected officials.
All policies aside this seems like a terrible thing - it's a direct path back
to having all bureaucrats be political appointees.

------
mickgardner
"Too often, corporations use information machinery to try to persuade"

------
dang
We changed the baity title to a representative sentence from the article, in
accordance with the HN guidelines.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

