Public Relations and Propaganda: Restrictions on Executive Agency Activities

[PDF] Recently, a number of promotional and public outreach actions by executive
branch agencies have provoked controversy. Some salient examples follow below.
• The Department of Education hired Armstrong Williams, a television commentator and syndicated columnist, to promote the No Child Left Behind Act on his television program.
• The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) launched a high profile public relations campaign (DTV — Get It!) to encourage consumers to purchase digital television sets. As part of this effort, former Chairman Michael K. Powell appeared on Monday Night Football, and the FCC created a website [http://www.dtv.gov] that promotes digital television (DTV) and includes hyperlinks to the websites of a number of large corporations with significant financial
interests in DTV.
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• As part of a $1 million public education campaign, the Environmental Protection Agency hired a public relations firm to produce a public service announcement (PSA) urging home owners
to help reduce pollution. The PSA, which came in video format, spoofed one man’s effort to reduce pollution by decreasing the quantity of gasoline required to run his automobile. The video told viewers that a home “can cause twice the green house gases of a car,” and directed consumers to a webpage, available online at [http://www.energystar.gov/] that listed energy-efficient household appliances; it did not provide information on the varying levels of emissions produced by different automobiles.
• In early April 2004, the Internal Revenue Service issued four press releases to remind taxpayers of the looming filing deadline. The press releases also included a policy assertion — “America has a choice: It can continue to grow the economy and create new jobs as
the president’s policies are doing, or it can raise taxes on American families and small businesses, hurting economic recovery and future job creation.”
• The Forest Service hired a public relations firm to produce a brochure which promoted increased logging in the Sierra Nevada forest. The brochure argued that the forest had grown too dense and that tree removal was a tool in the “campaign against catastrophic
wildfires” that would be beneficial to the forest and its fauna. The brochure included photographs that purported to show that the forest had become overgrown in the past century. However, the photograph showing low forest density in 1909 was taken after the
forest had been logged.
• The Social Security Administration (SSA) has reportedly drawn up a “strategic communications plan” that urges SSA employees to disseminate the message that “Social Security’s long-term financing problems are serious and need to be addressed soon” through
speeches, public events, and mass media, and by other means. emissions produced by different automobiles.