As if to underline my previous post on the Orwellian nature of today's government, a coalition of media organizations has designated March 13-20 as Sunshine Week in a bid to shed light on what a whopping 70 percent of Americans perceive as the U.S. government's increasingly restrictive access to public information.

But in addition to the many stories you'll be seeing here and there in the news this week about the government's ever-growing resistance to letting the public in, you're probably noticing a number of stories about the shady tools the government is using to output information.

Or disinformation, to be precise.

Witness: the fake news videos your tax dollars are paying for, dumped onto lazy local television news stations with rah-rah reports on government policy. (The Government Accountability Office - the investigative arm of Congress - recently denounced video news releases as "covert propaganda"; the White House response yesterday was basically, "Thanks for your opinion. We're gonna keep doing it anyway.")

Witness: the farcical Social Security road shows that are so scripted that participants gather a day in advance to rehearse their praises for Dear Leader. (It helps them "say things clearer," says a member of the Orwellian-named FreedomWorks, a right-wing advocacy group handling production duties and audience recruitment.)

Witness: the practice of planting fake journalists in the White House press room to conveniently change the subject during those rare occassions when the questions from the corps actually have some substance. (The fake White House journalist who's been in the news lately received security clearance despite using a fake name and moonlighting as a male prostitute.)

Sigh.

I'm the first to admit I'm not a big fan of this administration's policies.

But worse than the policies are the way they are sold, which is incrementally chipping away at the very foundation of the greatest nation on the planet. Newspeak. Fake town hall meetings. Propaganda passed off as objective news reports. Planted, fake reporters.

And while I'm glad to see that these ridiculous tactics are being exposed to the general public as part of a collective effort, I can't help but say:

"Duh."

And: "Too little too late."

Maybe if the press hadn't been so - afraid? lazy? indifferent? status quo? - when these stories needed to see the light of day, we wouldn't even need a Sunshine Week. I don't want to paint 'em all with one brush - that I've known about this stuff all along is proof enough that someone must have been reporting it - but damn.

Damn.

To that end: 16 days to Julia.

Giving the Daily Show a run for their money in the fake news department, this is Karen Ryan reporting.

Labels: in the news