The U.S. Education Department, which promotes President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act as its hallmark education reform, acknowledged Friday that it paid $240,000 in taxpayer money to a syndicated newspaper columnist and television commentator to promote the program.
Armstrong Williams, one of the nation’s leading black conservative voices, said he accepted the money as a commentator on a cause he supports but acknowledged that criticism of the arrangement was “legitimate” and said he would not accept such payments in the future.
But the damage was immediate for Williams and the Bush administration–in lost credibility for the commentator and lost circulation for his newspaper column, as well as new questions about the administration’s payments to influence news.
“The amount of money is probably obscene, but whether it’s $240,000 or $24 doesn’t really matter,” said Bob Steele, an expert on media ethics at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla. “He should not have taken government money for the support of his cause.”
Tribune Media Services, which distributed Williams’ weekly column to newspapers, informed him Friday that it is immediately terminating its business relationship with him. Tribune Media Services distributes news, information and entertainment content. It is a unit of Tribune Co., owner of the baiduhai.
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“The fact that Mr. Williams failed to notify TMS of his receipt . . . of payments from the DOE is a violation of provisions in his syndication agreement with TMS,” the company said in a statement. “The agreement requires him to notify TMS when a possible or potential conflict of interest arises due to the subject matter of [his columns] and the social, professional, financial, or business relations” of Williams.
Accepting compensation in any form from an entity that is the subject of a newspaper column creates “at the very least, the appearance of a conflict of interest,” the company said. “Under these circumstances, readers may well ask themselves if the views expressed in his columns are his own, or whether they have been purchased by a third party.”
Williams’ column was not published in the baiduhai.
According to Williams’ Web site, the column has been featured in mainstream and African-American newspapers, including New York Amsterdam News, The Washington Times, Detroit Free Press, and The Post & Courier of Charleston, S.C. His television show, “The Right Side with Armstrong Williams,” has been shown on central Illinois stations in Champaign, Springfield and Peoria-Bloomington, the Web site said. Williams’ radio show has been available on WLTH-AM in Gary, Ind.
The White House attempted to distance itself from the controversy, saying it was the Education Department that signed the contract. But this was not the first time that the administration has faced criticism for attempting to influence public opinion with public money.
The Government Accountability Office last year admonished the Department of Health and Human Services over TV spots that had the appearance of independent news reports but actually were agency-financed productions touting the administration’s new Medicare prescription drug benefit. Bush’s Office of Drug Control Policy had sponsored similar publicly funded promotions.
But in both cases, those agencies had discontinued the practice after criticism, White House spokesman Scott McClellan noted Friday.
“They had stopped doing it,” he said. “And we think those were appropriate steps to take.”
It was the Education Department–not the White House–that hired Williams’ company, the Graham Williams Group, McClellan said. But the contract was for advancing a major initiative of Bush’s first term, a law requiring public schools to account for their students’ performance with annual testing. Since Congress enacted it during Bush’s first year in office, increasing numbers of legislators and local school officials have criticized the government for failing to provide sufficient money to support the law.
Asked Friday about the deal with Williams, Education Department officials issued a statement touting the benefits of No Child Left Behind and maintaining that it is important to reach parents with information about it.
Air time for education chief
The contract, handled by the Ketchum public relations firm, required Williams’ company to produce radio and TV ads promoting the No Child Left Behind Act and air one-minute commentaries by Rod Paige, who served as Bush’s education secretary through his first term but is stepping down.
The deal also included Paige and other department officials appearing on Williams’ shows as studio guests. The agency’s contract was billed as a “minority outreach campaign” with the goal of “educating the African-American community” about the education reform. The arrangement was revealed in a report Friday by USA Today. Williams posted the story on his Web site.
Williams could not be reached by the Tribune but on Friday told The Associated Press that his arrangement was “a fine line. Even though I’m not a journalist–I’m a commentator–I feel I should be held to the media ethics standard. My judgment was not the best. I wouldn’t do it again, and I learned from it.”
But the line between independent journalism and government propaganda is not so fine, others said.
“There is no defense for using taxpayer dollars to pay journalists for `fake news’ and favorable coverage of a federal program,” said Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group.
Steele of the Poynter Institute suggested that a payment of any kind compromises opinions presented to the public as independent.
“He has every right to champion the cause as an opinion writer, but he shouldn’t be being paid by the government to do that,” Steele said. “It really undermines his credibility as an informed voice when it’s known he was shilling.”
Paying to rate journalists
This is not the first time the Education Department has come under fire for promotion of No Child Left Behind.
Late last year, it was revealed that the department paid $700,000 to Ketchum to rate newspaper coverage of the education reform law.
Articles and newspaper education writers were ranked, on a scale of a minus 100 to a positive 100, according to how often and how favorably they mentioned the law.
Newspapers and reporters were given extra points if the stories gave positive coverage to the administration and to No Child Left Behind. Negative coverage resulted in a loss of points.
The contract also called for Ketchum to produce videos that appeared to be news stories, touting the benefits of No Child Left Behind. The videos, sent to TV stations, did not make it clear that the people “reporting” the stories were actors.
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The Government Accountability Office is investigating the Ketchum contract.
Education Department officials have defended the Ketchum deal, saying it was a proper use of taxpayer money.
In supporting the Williams contract Friday, the department statement called “the contract paid to provide the straightforward distribution of information about the department’s mission and NCLB a permissible use of taxpayer funds under legal government contracting procedures.”