The difference between journalism and Bush's talking heads

Leave no ethics behind
Monday, January 10, 2005
San Francisco Chronicle

THE REVELATION that the Bush administration paid commentator Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote the "No Child Left Behind" program is disturbing on several counts.

No journalist worthy of the title should ever engage in such a deal. The sleaziness is not diminished by Williams' explanation that Bush's education policy was "something I believe in." He did not even bother to disclose the financial arrangement. It became public only after USA Today discovered it through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Williams' willingness to accept payment for commenting on NCLB and for interviewing outgoing Education Secretary Rod Paige on TV and radio spots would have been a serious ethical violation, even if the dollar amount were small.

Williams is the host of TV and radio shows and a frequent contributor of op-ed pieces to newspapers.

We're also outraged as taxpayers. A nation with a deficit in the hundreds of billions should not be enlisting high-priced public-relations firms -- such as the one that sought out Williams -- for such propaganda campaigns.

Federal education dollars would be better spent in the classroom, where they could be generating results worth touting -- without having to provide any payola to so-called journalists.

No pundit left behind
After Armstrong Williams pocketed $240,000 from the Department of Education, he conducted a flattering interview with Education Secretary Rod Paige for Sinclair Broadcasting.
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By Eric Boehlert
Jan. 12, 2005
Salon.com

Sinclair Broadcasting made headlines last year by aligning itself with partisan, conservative forces and pushing a political agenda.

In May, the media conglomerate refused to air "Nightline" when Ted Koppel read aloud the names of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. (Antiwar propaganda, Sinclair executives claimed.) Then, in late fall, Sinclair pushed forward a one-sided, anti-John Kerry documentary on the eve of the election. In both cases, while ignoring charges of bias, Sinclair bosses seemed to relish their time in the spotlight.

But now Sinclair is getting burned by one of its conservative stars and the media company is running for the shadows. In the wake of news that its on-air mainstay, conservative talk-show host and syndicated columnist Armstrong Williams, pocketed $240,000 from the Department of Education in exchange for hyping a White House education initiative, Sinclair is going out of its way to distance itself from its prime-time pundit. The company has also asked Williams to clear up the misleading impression that it carries his syndicated TV show on dozens of its stations.

Columnist was paid to back Bush on marriage

Howard Kurtz
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — In 2002, syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher repeatedly defended President Bush's push for a $300 million initiative encouraging marriage as a way of strengthening families.

"The Bush marriage initiative would emphasize the importance of marriage to poor couples" and "educate teens on the value of delaying childbearing until marriage," she wrote in National Review Online, for example, adding that this could "carry big payoffs down the road for taxpayers and children."

But Gallagher failed to mention that she had a $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to help promote the president's proposal. Her work under the contract, which ran from January through October 2002, included drafting a magazine article for the HHS official overseeing the initiative, writing brochures for the program and conducting a briefing for department officials.

"Did I violate journalistic ethics by not disclosing it?" Gallagher said yesterday. "I don't know. You tell me." She said she would have "been happy to tell anyone who called me" about the contract but that "frankly, it never occurred to me" to disclose it.