The ITT List
Wednesday Feb 22, 2006 2:28 pm
Spin? What spin? $1.62 billion spent by U.S. gov’t on media/pr contracts.
Have I mentioned how much I love the GAO lately? No? Well, I love the Government Accountability Office because they get real work done with my tax dollars, and because I get excited nearly everytime a new report comes out. I'm a geek like that, and I admit it. I just want to help them jazz up their report titles. (I really would love that job, but only if it were part-time.)
Last week's release of "Media Contracts: Activities and Financial Obligations for Seven Federal Departments," revealed that seven federal departments (Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, VA, Treasury, Interior and HHS) accounted for nearly all spending on public relations and advertising activities. The review spanned from FY 2003 through 2nd Quarter FY 2005.
Of the 343 media contracts and $1.62 billion spent, 40% went to advertising agencies, 38% to "media organizations," 16% to PR firms, and 2% to "individual members of the media."
"As we have reported, there is a lack of accurate government-wide information on these contracts," the GAO report emphasized.
Last week's release of "Media Contracts: Activities and Financial Obligations for Seven Federal Departments," revealed that seven federal departments (Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, VA, Treasury, Interior and HHS) accounted for nearly all spending on public relations and advertising activities. The review spanned from FY 2003 through 2nd Quarter FY 2005.
Of the 343 media contracts and $1.62 billion spent, 40% went to advertising agencies, 38% to "media organizations," 16% to PR firms, and 2% to "individual members of the media."
"As we have reported, there is a lack of accurate government-wide information on these contracts," the GAO report emphasized.
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Just what is meant by money going to individual members of the media?
Can we get their names and find out exactly what they did for the money?
A few of those individuals were identified last year, but not all of them, to be sure. As you may remember, information also came to light last year about the preponderance of ?video news releases? by at least 20 government agencies which were intended to be indistinguishable from news segments broadcast to the public by independent television news organizations.
The ?news release? topics ranged from the Iraq war to water quality in the U.S., were sent to hundreds of television stations, and seen by millions of viewers.
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