GOVERNMENT-FED NEWS

The Committee on Administration of the Missouri Senate this week approved a means by which staffers will feed video reports to local television stations across Missouri. The video reports will be 45 seconds in length and will be easily used by local TV stations that will pick them up on the same satellite feed on which the Missouri Lottery sends out daily reports to stations across Missouri.

The House and Senate are already cooperating to produce a weekly half-hour TV show during the legislative session, using state-owned studios and equipment and legislative staffers. Lawmakers of both parties participate in the shows, which mostly run on local cable TV systems.

Missourians will be pardoned if their enthusiasm for this latest exercise in a government-run news service is less than overwhelming. They are right to be suspicious when tax-paid government staffers are the ones supplying "news" to media outlets. An argument can be made that it will provide more information to the news-consuming public, but it comes at the cost of government employees making the key decisions: who among 197 lawmakers gets air time, how often they get it, what the message is or isn't, and so on.

This plan isn't exactly a substitute for energetic and enterprising reporting done by well-educated and experienced reporters. Perhaps the newshounds in Jefferson City will surprise all observers by operating a totally objective "news" enterprise. Don't bet on it.