That's one way to control the "liberal" media

[windelina]

In light of the second revelation this month that the Bush administration had hired a Republican-friendly pundit to help promote policy initiatives -- payments that were kept hidden from readers and viewers -- conservative commentators are calling on the White House to come clean and detail any other controversial agreements. The opinion makers say they don't want a black cloud of suspicion hanging over their own columns and broadcasts.

"If other contracts exist, then the White House should disclose them," says Jonah Goldberg, editor at large for National Review Online.

***

There's a Freedom of Information Act request about this - and they optimistically think that it will reveal any other wrongdoing.

But let's review: We now have evidence and admission that two columnists were paid by the Administration to push their policies, and this was done without full disclosure to the public that these "opinions" had been bought and paid for.
That's just skanky. In my RIGHTEOUS opinion.

Comments

[cjdoyle.livejournal.com]

Tres skanky. And I'm sure it's just the tip of the iceberg. If we ever found out how little real information reaches us, we'd probably all go live in caves out of terror.


Mmmmm. Caves.

[heidiz.livejournal.com]

Just want to say thanks for continually posting news that is of definite interest to me. These are stories that aren't in Canadian papers and I hardly spend enough time on the computer to reply to emails so I don't make time to read the Strib or anything else online.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see. When the government dishes out money to activist organizations on the left, that's just good policy, but when DoEd pays money to Armstrong Williams, "that's just skanky"? Smells like double standard to me, Windy.

I don't think the government ought to be doing it in either case, but as Mark Levin says, this isn't ethics, this is "gotcha".

[windelina.livejournal.com]

It's not about the money being spent or on what - it's about "journalists" being paid to advance a certain point of view without telling the public that they were PAID to have that opinion.

Money gets thrown everywhere in politics. Journalists taking a bribe to say what the government wants them to? That ought to be illegal, if it isn't already. (Note that "journalists" and "bribe" are both being used rather loosely.)

The pundits didn't speak up about it. But also, the administration didn't either.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

If you're paying somebody to say something they wouldn't normally say, or to shut up about something, then I agree that there's a problem. Paying people to do something they're going to do anyway is just dumb, and makes them look bad when the word gets out, and it always gets out.

Well, the upshot of this is that we're likely to have another stupid law passed which will do nothing to solve the "problem" of people being paid to flack for one side or the other. Meanwhile, the mainstream media do this sort of advocacy all the time for nothing, so...

[windelina.livejournal.com]

The system is so broken. I completely agree about that.

CBS and Dan Rather

[vackovich.livejournal.com]

We know at least where their extra funds are coming from, and it is not from the right.