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The New York Times

Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News
  By DAVID BARSTOW and ROBIN STEIN

Published: March 13, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/13covert.html?ex=1111381200&en=2d
48dec4b53dff33&ei=5070

excerpt:
  Under the Bush administration, the federal government has
aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the
prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have
long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache
remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies,
including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and
distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four
years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast
on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of
the government's role in their production.