Tax-Funded White House PR
Effort Questioned
A news commentator was paid to promote education policy, which critics call propaganda.
By Tom Hamburger, Nick Anderson and T. Christian Miller -- Los Angeles Times Staff
Writers January 8, 2005 - - - - See also: "Pundit
Industry"
WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of lawmakers called for an investigation
Friday into whether the Bush administration misused taxpayer funds by paying a
prominent media pundit $240,000 to promote the president's controversial new education
policy.
The Education Department on Friday defended its payments to conservative commentator
Armstrong Williams as part of a million-dollar contract with the Ketchum public
relations firm to promote the No Child Left Behind Act with minority groups.
Williams, who is African American, was hired by Ketchum in late 2003 to build
support among minorities for the president's education plan. He praised the program
in columns and on television without disclosing the payments.
His case is the latest and perhaps most striking example of the Bush administration
using government funds to market its agenda to the American public under the guise
of journalism. It is also a fresh blow for the media following recent scandals
that have raised questions about credibility.
Williams is the host of a syndicated television show and a frequent guest on CNN,
NBC and other media outlets, and writes a syndicated opinion column. His website
describes him as a "principled voice for conservatives and Christian values
in America's public debates" who brings "an independent view with a
refreshing twist to the central issues of our day."
In a column in May, for example, he sharply criticized the National Education
Assn., saying the teachers union was "fundamentally opposed to any education
reform — like vouchers or the No Child Left Behind Act — that seeks
to hold public schools accountable for their failures."
Williams said Friday that he had "made an error of judgment" in accepting
the payment, which was disclosed by USA Today.
Tribune Media Services, a subsidiary of the Tribune Co., which owns the Los Angeles
Times, announced it would stop syndicating Williams' column in response to the
revelations.
Democrats said Friday that the payments to Williams amounted to using tax money
to fund Republican propaganda. They were joined in their call for an inspector
general inquiry by at least one Republican, Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio, chairman
of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
"We believe that the act of bribing journalists to bias their news in favor
of government policies undermines the integrity of our democracy," said Democratic
Sens. Harry Reid of Nevada, Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey and Edward M. Kennedy
of Massachusetts in a letter to the president. They wrote that such actions "were
common in the Soviet Union, but until now, thought to be long extinguished in
our country."
Public relations contracts to promote government goals and services have been
around for decades. Under Republican and Democratic administrations, the number
and size of these contracts have grown, along with the use of deceptive tactics,
according to PR industry officials.
In two cases last year, the Government Accountability Office, Congress' nonpartisan
investigative arm, declared that departments under Bush had engaged in illegal
"covert propaganda."
The GAO issued a legal opinion criticizing video segments produced by PR firms
under contract with the Health and Human Services Department and the Office of
National Drug Control Policy. The segments were designed to be inserted into television
station newscasts, but did not indicate that the origin of the information was
the U.S. government. A third investigation into videos produced by the Education
Department is pending.
The Education Department defended its practices in a three-paragraph statement,
contending that officials had a duty to reach out to as many parents as possible
to explain No Child Left Behind, which Bush signed three years ago.
The law, one of Bush's signature domestic policy achievements, requires states
to hold schools accountable for teaching reading and mathematics in elementary
and middle schools in exchange for more federal education aid.
Concerns about public reaction to the law mounted in Republican circles. Democrats
attacked the administration for failing to provide enough funding for the new
policy. Teachers complained about the complex testing requirements.
To help promote and explain the new law, the department retained Ketchum. The
Ketchum contract came under criticism last fall when it emerged that some money
was spent to help the department assess how the media was portraying the law,
and other money was spent to develop controversial "video news releases."
Another part of the contract turned out to be the deal with Williams. The department
acknowledged that a firm headed by Williams had been awarded a subcontract worth
$240,000. The term of the subcontract was about a year, starting in December 2003.
In the contract, department officials said, Williams agreed to produce and air
two 60-second television spots and two radio spots featuring Education Secretary
Rod Paige explaining the law. The spots, officials said, ran frequently on Williams'
cable TV and syndicated radio shows over the last year and included a standard
disclaimer that identified the government as its sponsor.
But the subcontract also included several unorthodox provisions, according to
a copy of the contract released under the Freedom of Information Act.
First, it stipulated that Ketchum "shall arrange for Mr. Williams to regularly
comment" on the law during his broadcasts. It also called for Williams to
use his influence with "America's Black Forum," a public affairs television
program aimed at African Americans, to encourage producers to "periodically
address"' the law.
Second, the contract gave Paige and other department officials the right to appear
from "time to time" as guests on Williams' programs. Paige apparently
exercised this option at least once in a one-hour interview on a show called "On
Point," education officials said.
The contract praised the "unique and diverse" viewership of one of Williams'
shows, called "The Right Side." The show's audience is 30% African American,
21% Latino and 40% white, according to the contract.
"We're interested in getting our message out to the audience that watches
his show," said a senior Education Department official. The official added
that the agency would cooperate with the congressional request for a review.
But many education experts cringed at the revelation.
"You don't pay money to a reporter to tell him that as part of that payment
he's going to allow the secretary of Education so many appearances on TV,"
said Jack Jennings, director of the Center on Education Policy in Washington and
a former top Democratic education aide on Capitol Hill. "That's buying news
coverage."
Public relations firms are increasingly used by government, according to PR experts,
who said that Washington firms received millions in contracts from federal agencies
each year.
"The government has been pushing the envelope more in recent years,"
following the practice of private industry, said Paul Holmes, who produces a newsletter,
the Holmes Report, monitoring the PR industry. "The problem, it seems to
me, is what a company does with its own funds and what a government does with
public funds requires two very different standards."
The use of government funds to covertly influence public opinion surfaced as an
issue in the 1980s, when the Reagan administration paid consultants to send op-ed
pieces and letters to newspapers in support of its policies in Central America
without disclosing the payments.
Controversy has also surrounded the use of the video news releases, which are
typically produced by PR firms to disseminate to local TV stations.
The releases included short segments on government programs and policies designed
to be inserted into nightly news reports. They included instructions to news anchors
for suggested lead-ins to the segments and voice-over from actors who claimed
to be "reporting" on a subject. The news segments do not identify the
source of the information as the U.S. government.
For instance, a recent anti-drug ad produced by the White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy was titled "Urging parents to get the facts straight
on teen marijuana use."
The news release ran for two minutes, and featured a voiceless reporter identified
as Mike Morris introducing such officials as drug czar John P. Walters warning
parents about the dangers of marijuana.
The GAO said such releases violated laws against the use of tax dollars to fund
propaganda without explicit congressional approval and without disclosing the
government's role.
"The crucial issue here is the covert aspect of it. The target audience does
not know that this is information prepared by the government," said Susan
Poling, the GAO's managing associate general counsel. "If this is prepared
with tax dollars, then legally it should be acknowledged as such.''
During the Clinton era, Health and Human Services said it used actors to portray
reporters in fake news segments designed to be distributed to television stations.
The GAO found that the same principles forbidding covert propaganda would have
been applicable to the Clinton-era news packages, which were produced in October
1999. The GAO did not criticize the packages at the time because they "were
not brought to our attention," according to the legal opinion.
Rep. George Miller, a Democrat from Martinez, Calif., who co-wrote the No Child
Left Behind Act, led calls to investigate the Williams matter. He said in an interview
that he thought the Department of Education had "become distracted by the
Bush administration's questionable political agenda."
Said Miller: "The administration ought to obey the law."'
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Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
Case Shines Harsh
Light on 'Pundit Industry'
By James Rainey Los Angeles Times Staff Writer January 8, 2005
If the public was not already doubtful about the independence of the pundits who
jam 24-hour news stations, it may become so following the revelation that a popular
conservative commentator was paid $240,000 to promote President Bush's No Child
Left Behind Act.
Several media analysts said the disclosure Friday that Armstrong Williams had
a contract to promote the education law should cause reexaminations on several
fronts: government in its use of tax money to promote political causes, news outlets
in screening opinion makers for bias, and news consumers in scrutinizing information
thrown their way.
"There is a declining public trust in the media as a system, and I think
this is a really troublesome ethical issue," said Nancy Snow, a professor
of communications at Cal State Fullerton. "It could become a larger issue
if the public across the board says that all these media celebrities need to be
more forthcoming about what they are getting paid to say."
Marty Kaplan, associate dean of USC's Annenberg School for Communication, said
such problems had been spawned, in particular, by the desire of 24-hour television
news programs to fill their broadcasts with experts and commentators.
"The pundit industry has exploded with people setting themselves up as authorities
and cloaking themselves in the values of journalism, where in fact all they are
doing is promoting a brand, which is themselves," Kaplan said.
In response to news about the payment, Williams lost his contract with Tribune
Media Services, the syndicate that carried his weekly column to several dozen
newspapers. The executive who manages the syndicate for Tribune Co., the parent
company of the Los Angeles Times, said Williams failed to disclose that he was
being paid by the Department of Education.
Among the papers that received Williams' columns through the syndicate were the
Washington Times, the Detroit Free Press and the Seattle Times, according to his
website.
A spokeswoman for CNN, which frequently uses Williams as a conservative voice
on its news programs, said the cable network should have been notified about Williams'
relationship with the Bush administration.
"We will seriously consider this before booking him again," said spokeswoman
Edie Emery.
NBC spokeswoman Allison Gollust said that if the network's programs used Williams
again, they would first identify his relationship with the Department of Education
"as in the case of any of our interviewees on something they are being paid
to promote."
Williams spent a long day and night Friday apologizing for what he admitted was
an ethical lapse.
The 45-year-old son of South Carolina tobacco farmers wears multiple professional
hats — radio and television talking head, newspaper columnist, public relations
executive, book author and television producer.
"I am a pure entrepreneur, and I made a business decision," Williams
said of the $240,000 contract. "I didn't think about the dual role of media
pundit and entrepreneur. And if I had to do it again I would do it differently,
because it is much more important to me — my reputation with my peers and
with the public."
Williams said it was only after being interviewed by journalists Friday that he
realized many major news outlets had disclosure requirements to ensure that their
employees avoided such conflicts of interest.
He said he had "no doubt" that other commentators had similar ethical
dilemmas that simply hadn't been publicized.
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Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
After the scandal broke, President Bush disavowed the practice in his next
Press
Conference (Jan.26, 2005)