Nice to know this is what our government and media has come to.

Fake News Briefing by FEMA Draws Official Rebukes

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/27/washington/27fake.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

By ERIC LIPTON

Published: October 27, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 — The Federal Emergency Management Agency staged a fake news conference this week, with agency staff officials, pretending to be reporters, peppering one of their own bosses with decidedly friendly questions about the response to the California fires, the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged Friday.

The action, first reported on Friday in The Washington Post, drew a rebuke from the White House and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, and an apology from the agency official who was at the lectern, Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy director.

“We have made it clear that such a stunt will never be tolerated or repeated,” a spokeswoman for the department, Laura C. Keehner, said on behalf of Mr. Chertoff.

The questions from the staff were posed after FEMA gave reporters only 15 minutes notice for a news conference on Tuesday, meaning that other than television camera crews, no reporters showed up before questioning began. A toll-free telephone line was provided so reporters could listen in, but it was not set up to allow questions.

As a result, staff members asked Mr. Johnson a series of friendly questions like, “Are you happy with FEMA’s response so far?” and, “What lessons learned from Katrina have been applied?”

Mr. Johnson gave no indication that the questions came from his own staff.

“I’m very happy with FEMA’s response so far,” Mr. Johnson said in response to one question, according to a transcript.

Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman, said the event was mishandled. “It’s not something I would have condoned,” she said. “And they — I’m sure — will not do it again.”

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Is this new news? FEMA fucks up as usual. Ok, not really. But I posted this article because much worse than this fake news conference actually taking place is the disappearance of this news article from any major news source top headlines or front pages in a matter of hours or possibly minutes. I found out about this through a message board and had to actually perform a search on nytimes.com to find the article. This just happened yesterday. See what I'm trying to get at? It's not just government that's doing something wrong, but it's the fact that no one is finding out about it. If media treats these issues like passing matters, how can they ever succeed in lighting a fire under our collective asses so that we can do our job of checks and balances. Because when the government's system of checks and balances fails, does it not fall upon the people to react, compensate, adjust, balance, fix it?! It's been almost eight miserable years of the US going down the drain because of a rotten administration and suddenly media is just flushing is down the toilet instead of causing a flood.