The government is ramping up its PR strategy — to the tune of nearly $4 billion

Two men standing outside the U.S. Capitol building.

(Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

published 8 December 2015

The federal government has spent nearly $4 billion in the last eight years to increase its roster of public relations staffers and retain the services of high-end PR firms.

Per an audit conducted by Open the Books, there are currently 3,092 PR staff in the federal government, which marks a 15 percent increase over the pre-2007 count. While some of the resulting PR may produce increased transparency in government, the watchdog organization cautioned that many agencies use this bolstered PR budget for less positive purposes.

"Federal agencies...not only resist transparency but often pretend to be transparent when, in reality, they are engaged in self-promotion," the report noted, "Too often, they use their charge to disclose information as a cover for public relations campaigns that are designed to advance their interests (i.e. their desire for more funding and higher salaries) rather than the public interest."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.