Friday, May 21, 2010
"White House message machine spins faster than ever"
Here's an article that describes the lengths the White House goes to to manage/control the news.
I guess it's a sign of the times; but, it makes me very uncomfortable.
It seems to make it too easy for our lazy biased media outlets to just pass on what might be considered "propaganda"...
I guess it's a sign of the times; but, it makes me very uncomfortable.
It seems to make it too easy for our lazy biased media outlets to just pass on what might be considered "propaganda"...
Steven Thomas writes on the McClatchy Newspapers' website:
"The White House bureaucracy devoted to managing public imagery has been growing since President Richard Nixon created the first office devoted to broad communications strategy in 1969. Obama's version uses a blend of old and new techniques and technology in an effort to cut through a polarized partisan landscape and a dizzying array of modern mass media that abbreviate attention spans and fracture public attention.
Obama's White House message machine employs 69 people who are directly involved in some part of the communications effort, at a cost to taxpayers of at least $4.3 million a year. That's an increase from 47 in Bill Clinton's White House and 52 in George W. Bush's.
Those totals don't include communications staffs at the National Security Council or in Vice President Joseph Biden's offices, or support staff who are paid out of different accounts.
They also don't include hundreds of political appointees scattered across cabinet departments and agencies who were hired with approval from the Obama White House and who work with the White House to present a coordinated message, as they did under previous presidents."
