That was in one of the tinfoil links I popped in here earlier.
In February, 1976, George Bush, the recently appointed Director of the CIA announced a new policy: "Effective immediately, the CIA will not enter into any paid or contract relationship with any full-time or part-time news correspondent accredited by any U.S. news service, newspaper, periodical, radio or television network or station." However, he added that the CIA would continue to "welcome" the voluntary, unpaid cooperation of journalists.www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmockingbird.htm
Another fun term to google is "covert propaganda." This is generically a reference to use of government money to fund persuasive material, without identifying the presentation (press release, commercial, whatever) as being government sponsored. There is a federal bureaucracy that polices "covert propaganda," and issues rulings.
That sounds like it was in response to the fallout from the antiwar journal Ramparts running an expose on CIA domestic operations. After that and some related information came out many of the CIA's assets in the newspaper business started getting exposed. This got national publicity (initiated by I believe a NYT series by Seymour Hersh) during the post-Watergate investigations of the intelligence community, which would be the time frame of the Bush quote above.