skin the fox

ANDY SCHUB

Andrew Schub is our Newsletter Contributing Editor. He will be posting weekly stories on things Bush and Fox News you may not know about but should, may know about but do not know enough about, or may know about but dagnabbit you just need to know more.

THE BEST FREE PRESS MONEY CAN BUY
by Andrew Schub

Armstrong Williams is a "prominent black pundit" and "one of the top black conservative voices in the nation" according to an article in USA Today. Williams hosts "The Right Side" on TV and radio, and writes op-ed pieces for newspapers including USA TODAY.

In other words, the guy is a journalist in every sense of the word.

Until he took a $240,000 payment from the Bush administration (specifically, W. Bush's education department) to promote the proposed "No Child Left Behind" program in his articles and public television appearances, and did not disclose the fact he was being paid to promote a government agency's agenda under the guise of his opinion --

EDUCATION DEPT. PAID COMMENTATOR

That wasn't only a colossal breach of journalistic ethics. That was a crime.

Actually, that was two crimes.

The moment Williams took money to promote the administration's political agenda, he became a Paid Spokesman, and it is illegal for someone acting as a paid spokesperson not to disclose that fact.

Really. The next time you are channel surfing at 3 a.m. and you come across an infomercial starring an actor you think you recognize from a show that last aired when "Disco Duck" was on the Billboard charts, there will at some point be a notation that pops up on screen that says "paid spokesman."

That is because it is illegal to not tell viewers you are a paid spokesman.

And it was completely illegal for Armstrong Williams to take money to promote "No Child Left Behind" on his TV show and in his newspaper pieces and not tell his viewers and readers he was being paid to do it.

It was also illegal for the White House to pay someone to promote its agenda. That's called propaganda and Congress has outlawed it.

When W. Bush was asked about the situation, he replied, "The Cabinet needs to take a good look and make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again."

They must not have looked too hard, though, because this past week, two more "journalists" got caught taking payola from the Bush administration.

The first was nationally syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher, who took $21,500 from the Department of Health and Human Services in 2002, and $20,000 in 2002|2003. In return for the cash, Gallagher promoted the Bush administration's $300 million pro marriage initiative. (Um, that would be the Bush administration's pro straight marriage initiative.)

PRINCIPLED JOURNALISTS NEED NOT APPLY

The second was Michael McManus, the president and co-chair of an organization called "Marriage Savers, Inc." McManus was paid $10,000 to promote the Bush administration's Community Healthy Marriage Initiative in McManus' conference presentations.

THIRD COLUNIST WAS PAID BY BUSH AGENCY

According to the web site Media Matters for America, both Gallagher and McManus promoted administration policies in several columns. Gallagher also discussed marriage in numerous TV appearances while the government was paying her to promote its marriage initiative; According to Nexis, she appeared on CBS, CNN, and MSNBC at least seven times in 2002 and 2003. McManus specifically promoted the administration's marriage policies in a 2004 appearance on CBS' The Early Show. Neither disclosed their contracts during any of these appearances.

MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA

Oh, and one last thing to keep in mind, in case you are inclined to think this really isn't that big a deal: The money that was used to pay off this trio of journalistic hacks? The Bush administration made their payments with taxpayers' money, and that came directly from your pockets and mine.