white house has spent 1.62 billion on PR
"WASHINGTON (AFP) - President George W. Bush's administration spent 1.62 billion dollars on advertising and public relations contracts over two and a half years, an independent agency said.
The Department of Defense spent more than any other government agency on media-related contracts, paying 1.1 billion dollars for recruitment campaigns and other public relations efforts, according to a report by the Government Accountablity Office (GAO), an investigative, non-partisan arm of Congress.
The department funded activities including presenting "the Army's strategic perspective in the Global War on Terrorism," the report said.
The GAO said the report was based on a questionnaire answered by seven federal departments covering 2003, 2004 and the first two quarters of 2005.
Opposition Democrats said on Monday the report provided evidence that the Bush administration was engaged in an elaborate public relations campaign to promote its programs at the expense of more important priorities.
"The extent of the Bush administration's propaganda effort is unprecedented and disturbing," Representative George Miller (news, bio, voting record) of California said in a statement.
Democratic lawmakers had requested the GAO examine the funding of advertising and media campaigns after details emerged last year of controversial public relations efforts by the White House.
The administration came under criticism over contracts for favorable videos that were made to look like independent television reports and were distributed to US television networks as bona fide news stories.
The Department of Education also paid a newspaper columnist to promote its legislative initiative.
The GAO presented the information without offering a judgment or comparison to previous administrations. In a letter attached to the report, the Department of Interior disagreed with the GAO, saying funding for national park visitor centers and exhibits fell outside of public relations."
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