A little more research by the news stations would also have called into question the status of the sole parent featured in the VNR, Valerie Garland, as an unbiased source. In the video, Garland expresses frustration that her son’s high school previously lacked tutoring resources. But only two months before the first VNR-generated news story aired, President Bush, addressed students at a Washington D.C. school, promoting his school choice initiative. During the speech, Bush referred to his “emotional meeting” with Garland, noting that the “two shed a tear or two about the future.” In other words, Garland had been used previously by the Bush administration to promote a completely different aspect of its education agenda. Hardly an ordinary parent.

The day after Megan Baker’s “story” aired in Albany, it showed up on a page of the Department of Education ‘s website that showcases positive media coverage of No Child Left Behind. Thus was a self-referential loop closed: the Bush administration had produced a promotional video touting a new government program and designed to look like a complete news story; the news media had run that video as news, just as the administration had hoped; and the administration had in turn posted the story on a governmental website as evidence that the program was generating positive news coverage. Things had come full circle.

In the process, the complicit press took the process one step farther than Karen Ryan had. It’s one thing for a PR operative to pose as a reporter; it’s another for a reporter to act as a cog in the PR wheel of a government agency.

—Thomas Lang and Zachary Roth

• 1
• 2