We members of the media are an unpredictable bunch. You can't always count on us to be your dutiful lapdog. We're often too busy being critical and skeptical, exposing stuff, seeking the truth, all of that inconvenient junk.

Indeed, in these uncertain times, if you need to claim a decent journalist as your own, you've got to go out and buy or create one. And that's exactly what the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did, as was exposed last week in a New York Times piece that has made waves in media-biz circles.

A public relations professional named Karen Ryan was hired by HHS for the purpose of creating what the department termed "video news releases." In this case, what the releases show is a purported reporter (Ryan) waxing positive about President Bush's controversial new Medicare prescription drug law. The New York Times reported that the production company that hired Ryan admitted she was reading from a script prepared by the government.

It would be bad enough if this "news" was being served up for consumption as clearly defined paid political announcements in an election year, except there was nothing clear about them. The releases weren't labeled as infomercials but simply thrust into the mix as supposedly reported stories on various local TV station newscasts.

One shows the president receiving a standing ovation while signing the Medicare bill into law. Another features a pharmacist telling an elderly customer that the new law "helps you better afford your medications," to the obvious delight of said senior.

The video clips end with the sign-off, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting." Ryan actually runs a PR company called Karen Ryan Group Communications. That makes her a government shill, not a journalist.

And they say the line between news and entertainment is hopelessly thin. What about the one between news and propaganda? Let's just erase it entirely, shall we?

It would be laughable were it not so infuriating. What it graphically illustrates is what appears to be contempt by the Bush administration for the Fourth Estate and all it represents, casting the media as a mere commodity that can be purchased outright rather than the checks-and-balances pillar of a free society.

Perhaps it makes perfect sense that in an era when producers can toss a bunch of half-naked, mostly good-looking people on an island, stir the pot and call it "reality TV," an arm of the federal government is brazen enough to believe it can create its own cheerleader and call it journalism.

A piece that ran on the Columbia Journalism Review-sponsored Web site the Campaign Desk (www.campaigndesk.org) details how Ryan's company produces video news releases packaged as complete news segments that tout the virtues of a client's product or issue (such as the Medicare drug bill, but also recently for a new needle-free flu vaccination called Flumist).

The danger here really isn't so much that people will believe a purportedly balanced newscast is hyping a certain point of view. It's the can of worms it opens with regard to believing anything, with distinguishing between that which is unbiased and that which is partisan -- i.e., between editorial and advertising.

If that rings a bell, it should. It's the very foundation of journalism itself. When reportage and sponsorship intermingle with deliberate confusing intent, the walls between the two come tumbling down along with any sense of trust in the message.