Good to 'see' you.
It certainly is interesting, isn't it? I didn't get as far back as FDR, most everything seems to try to tack it to Hoover.
The Kennedy admin links are fascinating.
I've come across something, somewhere where GHWB outlawed this stuff...
The Kennedy family's ties to the Washington Post during the Watergate scandal are interesting.
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.