Why Did the FCC Hire Ketchum?

[Commentary] It was a peculiar decision for the Federal Communications Commission to hire the ethically-challenged Ketchum Communications as their communications and "messaging" guru for the digital television education initiative. It was Ketchum that funneled $240,000 from the U.S. Department of Education to syndicated television and radio host Armstrong Williams in exchange for his touting of the Bush Administration’s “No Child Left Behind” program a few years ago. Williams did not disclose the contract to his viewers or readers. Of course, the FCC itself conducted an official investigation of the Williams episode, concluding the failure to disclose the government’s contract with the television and radio host was a violation of the law. Ketchum was also behind so-called “video news releases” about the No Child Left Behind program in which a public relations executive named Karen Ryan posed as a news reporter. Those VNRs, which were picked up and used by media outlets across the country without any editing or identification of origin, were funded by the Department of Education through a contract with Ketchum. Click here for more information on the incidents. Ketchum was widely condemned for both episodes, even drawing fire from some of its fellow powerhouse public relations firms. The incidents also touched off a larger debate on whether the VNRs, the Williams contract and similar PR tactics were, in actuality, nothing more than taxpayer-funded government propoganda. Incredibly, one of Ketchum's primary recommendations was the preparation and distribution of a half dozen of what the PR calls “Drop-In Article/Matte Releases,” which are -- for all practical purposes -- merely a print press version of the widely condemned VNRs. To its credit, the FCC this week rejected Ketchum’s matte release recommendation, according to Communications Daily, an industry newsletter. Still, knowing what they had to know about Ketchum’s past shenanigans on taxpayer-funded PR efforts, it's incomprehensible that the FCC awarded the company a contract for perhaps the most critical element of the digital TV transition public education program.
http://www.consumersunion.org/blogs/hun/2008/05/now_hear_this_newsletter...