February
16, 2005
Who Is "On the Take?"
By
Bruce Bartlett
There seems to be an epidemic of conservative columnists
being
paid by the Bush administration to publicize its initiatives
-- first
Armstrong Williams, then Maggie Gallagher, now Michael McManus.
The facts of these cases are different, but all have been
lumped together in media reports. The implication is that
conservative columnists are "on the take." The
goal is to simultaneously undermine the Bush administration,
its initiatives and the small band of conservatives who
appear in the mainstream media.
I suppose I should start with myself. Back in the early
1980s, I
did some consulting work for the Agency for International
Development to write a study of taxation in developing countries.
I worked on the White House staff in the late 1980s and
at the Treasury Department during the administration of
George H.W. Bush. Since then, I have not gotten a government
check for anything except the occasional tax refund.
In short, since I began my column in 1995, I have done
no
consulting work for the government, either in terms of general
public relations, as in the case of Williams, or for specific
products, as was the case with Gallagher and McManus. In
the interest of full disclosure, however, I have had a couple
of lunches in the White House Mess, courtesy of those with
Mess privileges.
Having said that, there is a larger question here. Is
there any
reason to believe that Williams, Gallagher or McManus changed
their positions in some way favorable to the administration
as the result of whatever largess they received? The answer,
clearly, is no. They supported the initiatives they were
paid to work on long before receiving any sort of government
contract. And it is highly unlikely that they took these
positions in the hopes of receiving such contracts, since
in each case their positions long predate the election of
President Bush.
If one could show some evidence of a change in opinion
or
emphasis before and after receipt of the contract, perhaps
there would be a case for dismissal from the community of
columnists. But there is no evidence of that. It is clear
that in each case, the contract was given precisely because
the columnist was already a supporter of Bush's policies.
The real question here is not why a columnist would take
money
to support what he or she already supported, but why the
administration would take the risk of burning one of its
very few journalistic supporters? Frankly, the people that
should be fired are not the columnists, but those who gave
them the contracts. It was extraordinarily bad judgment
that was certain to become public at some point, thereby
embarrassing not only the
contract recipients, but the president himself.
This being said, there is a heavy element of double standards
at
work here. The Clinton administration actually put "journalists"
like Sid Blumenthal and David Gergen on the White House
payroll, mainly for the purpose of defending everything
it did among their former colleagues. No one said this was
unethical, even though Blumenthal virtually campaigned for
a White House job by writing fawning praises of Bill Clinton
disguised as news
reports for his previous employers.
But mainstream journalists who routinely speak before
corporations, trade associations and interest groups hoping
to influence news coverage practice the greatest double
standard. Virtually every major television anchor is listed
with one or more speakers' bureaus, which charge tens of
thousands of dollars for one of them to appear. But of course,
this also gives business executives plenty of opportunity
to explain why their industry or their products are really
good for the American people.
In other cases, journalists work for the very businesses
they
report on. Howard Kurtz, The Washington Post's media reporter,
has a show on CNN. Critics like Slate's Mickey Kaus have
charged that this consistently causes him to underplay negative
news relating to CNN.
Yet journalists are still quick to assume that every politician
who takes a $1,000 campaign contribution from a lobbyist
has been bought, while self-righteously proclaiming that
$100,000 speaking fees cannot buy them. At least the officials
have to disclose it, while no one knows how much the journalists
make or whom they have been bought by -- sorry, I mean whom
they were paid to speak to. If what the journalists are
doing is in
fact justifiable, why don't they give government officials
the same
consideration? The answer is pure hypocrisy, nothing more.
This is not meant as a defense of conservative columnists
who
have gotten government contracts. They should have enough
sense to know that there is a double standard and to avoid
the appearance of impropriety. But mainstream journalists,
in effect selling themselves to the biggest corporate bidder,
are a much greater scandal that will continue to be ignored
because so many are on the take.
Copyright
2005 Creators Syndicate
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