Education Department Paid Pundit

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Education Department Paid Journalist

 

Associated Press

 

 

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration paid a prominent black journalist to promote President Bush's education law and give Education Secretary Rod Paige media time, records show.

 

Armstrong Williams, a nationally syndicated radio, print and television personality, was paid $240,000 by the Education Department to promote the No Child Left Behind Act.

 

The contract required Williams' company, the Graham Williams Group, to produce radio and TV ads that promote the controversial law and feature one-minute "reads" by Paige. The deal also allowed Paige and other department officials to appear as studio guests with Williams.

 

Williams, one of the leading black conservative voices in the country, was also to use his influence with other black journalists to get them to talk about No Child Left Behind.

 

The law, the centerpiece of President Bush's domestic agenda, aims to raise achievement among poor and minority children, with penalties for many schools that don't make progress.

 

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Friday that the decisions on the practice were made by the Education Department. He did not directly answer when asked whether the White House approved of the practice, saying it was a department matter.

 

The Education Department defended its decision as a "permissible use of taxpayer funds under legal government contracting procedures." The point was to help parents, particularly in poor and minority communities, understand the benefits of the law, the department said.

 

Three Democratic senators - Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Harry Reid of Nevada - wrote Bush Friday to demand he recover the money paid to Armstrong. The lawmakers contended that "the act of bribing journalists to bias their news in favor of government policies undermines the integrity of our democracy."

 

The department's contract with Williams, through the public relations firm Ketchum, dates to 2003 and 2004. It is billed as a "minority outreach campaign" with the goal of "educating the African-American community" about the education law.

 

Information about the contract with Williams was first reported by USA Today.

 

Williams called criticism of his relationship with the department "legitimate."

 

"It's a fine line," he told The Associated Press on Friday. "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."

 

This is not the first time the department has come under fire for its publicity efforts.

 

The Bush administration has promoted No Child Left Behind with a video that comes across as a news story but fails to make clear the reporter involved was paid with taxpayer money. It has also has paid for rankings of newspaper coverage of the law, with points awarded for stories that say Bush and the Republican Party are strong on education. The Government Accountability Office, Congress' auditing arm, is investigating those spending decisions.

 

"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 group that has tracked the department's spending. "It's a scandalous waste."

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

What a shame -- picking on a brotha.

 

Hope that $240k was worth it because I doubt he'll fully recover from this. I think I read somewhere that his syndicator canned his print columns or something...

[Guest sek69]

This isn't the first time they've done this, they also made fake news stories about the Medicare drug benefit that appeared to be a news report but was actually a bought and paid for ad by the Bush Administration.

 

I love this line:

 

"Even though I'm not a journalist - I'm a commentator"

 

This has become the standard defense whenever someone (usually conservative) gets caught spreading BS across the TV or radio, "hey I'm just a commentator, I'm not a JOURNALIST~!" as if people watching at home really sit down to parse wether the man talking to them is a bona fide journalist or not.

[Guest Smell the ratings!!!]

the news can't be trusted?! I've been living a lie!!!

[Guest sek69]

Tom Tomorrow of ThisModernWorld.com makes an excellent point:

 

"You've most likely seen this (link to the above mentioned story) by now, but it's really quite extraordinary: the White House is literally paying a right wing talk show host to parrot the party line. Which immediately brings to mind the question: what other right wing talkers are collecting taxpayer funds? Inquiring minds would really like to know."

 

 

I've often wondered this, since so many of the well-known ones are so uniform in their commentary its as if they were reading off the same script.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

What has me enraged is that the government paid a right-wing pundit to shill for a program he would probably shill for in the first place on his show for free. (I'm sure Williams would have invited Page onto his show free of charge to talk about NCLB...)

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

The defendant speaks...

 

In this article (via Kos, admittedly), Williams refuses to give names. But he's apparently not the only one.

[Guest Loss]

This is where Mike would point out that the left has done the same if he still posted here.

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

And this is where I'd type out my preformatted response that IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT THE LIBERALS WOULD DO or something like that, and then cut a promo about late term abortions.

[Guest Loss]

*sigh*

 

If only ...

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

Yeah dude, shit would be the hotness.

[NoCalMike 0]

Dear I <3 Karl Rove,

 

Can we please have Tyler back? Thanks.

 

Sincerely,

The Smart Marks Board

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

The defendant speaks...

 

In this article (via Kos, admittedly), Williams refuses to give names. But he's apparently not the only one.

I was just about to post that.

 

So let the speculation begin--which right wing pundits are bought and paid for by Bushco.?

 

I gots to go wit my boy...