Armstrong Williams warned us that "there were others" who had been paid off to report favorably on the administration's policies, and now we have our first other.
Howard Kurtz reports in The Washington Post...
"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.
Later in the day, Gallagher filed a column in which she said that "I should have disclosed a government contract when I later wrote about the Bush marriage initiative. I would have, if I had remembered it. My apologies to my readers."
Oh, that's rich. While she was writing a column promoting the policy, it slipped her mind that she had been paid over $21,000 to promote the policy. Sure, sure. It's easy to see how she wouldn't have made a connection between the two things. Or, wait, the one thing. It's the same thing.
Also choice is her question to readers on whether or not she violated journalistic ethics. Since you're asking, Maggie, yes, you did.
The point here, as if it should have to be said, is that if you're being paid by someone who has a direct interest in what you're writing about, you should disclose it. Some people say this shouldn't apply to bloggers, or whatever. It should apply to everyone. In some cases it's a matter of law, but in all cases it's a matter of ethics and just basic honesty.
Sheesh.
