LIFE IN THE BUBBLE….Henry Farrell links today to the latest example of the Bush administration deciding that the best response to bad news is to pretend that it doesn’t exist. Jefferson Morley reports in the Washington Post:
Last week the [State Department] stopped posting surveys of how the international press is covering significant developments in U.S. foreign policy….The information, posted regularly since 1998, constituted a comprehensive documentary record of the impact of U.S. foreign policy on global public opinion.
….No more. The Web address of the Office of Media Reaction ?
usinfo.state.gov/products/medreac.htm ? now yields a “page not found” error. The archive of past surveys is also unavailable. The page states, “The USINFO website is undergoing significant design changes.” There’s a link to the surveys from the main State Department press page, but it’s dead.….[An] official told me the department is still monitoring foreign media reaction but the resulting written surveys are for “internal consumption only.”
Life is always happier inside the bubble….
