Political Payola

Back in the 1950s, the world of rock-'n-roll radio was all aflutter over disclosures that disk jockeys routinely took secret payments from record companies to guarantee air time for their songs. The practice, which became known as payola, sparked a big scandal and heartfelt industry promises never to do it again.

As the French would say, plus ca change, plus ca meme chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Armstrong Williams is a highly conservative black commentator who opines on the issues of the day in his syndicated newspaper column and TV show, not to mention the various television pundit shows on which he is a frequent guest. Over the last year or two, he has spoken out strongly in favor of the Bush Administration's No Child Left Behind Act, the education-reform law which is supposed to increase student performance. He made it a constant theme, often inviting Education Secretary Rod Paige on his show to expound on the law's benefits.

Now it turns out he had motives other than mere punditry. USA Today revealed last week that via the Department of Education, the White House secretly gave Williams payola -- $241,000, to be exact -- to provide an Administration-friendly forum for NCLB on his own show, to support it when he went on other shows, and to lobby other black journalists to get in line with the cause.

Not only did Williams never bother mentioning to anyone that his pro-NCLB comments in various media outlets were actually paid political announcements, it took a Freedom of Information Act request to pry the information out of the White House. Somewhat to his credit, he admitted that what he did was wrong, which is putting it mildly. Tribune Media Services has already dropped his column and one TV network has suspended his show. Other newspapers are announcing that they will no longer run his Op-Ed submissions because they'll never know for sure if he's trying to pull the same scam.

Williams will face the music, as well he should. Secretly taking money to promote a partisan political agenda while hiding that minor fact from readers and viewers, not to mention the networks on which he appeared, is way out of line.

What remains to be seen is whether the White House will face any consequences over this. You see, it is extremely illegal for the government to engage in domestic propaganda. And it's not like they haven't gotten caught at this before. Last year, it was revealed that the Administration had produced fake news videos with actors posing as reporters touting the then-pending Medicare prescription-drug benefit. Proving that some people never learn, it was revealed only last week that the same swindle was pulled to sell the White House's illegal-drug policies. In both cases, more than one station was deceived into running the videos as actual news items before the fraud was unmasked.

Disturbingly, the White House says this latest flap is not a big deal and blamed it on Education. They in turn shrugged it off as "a permissible use of taxpayer funds." Permissible to use our tax dollars to pay off so-called journalists into regurgitating government propaganda? Um...no, it isn't. Not by a long shot. And by the way, how wonderful can this law possibly be if the Administration has to resort to flat-out bribery to get it some good press? (Answer: it isn't. The White House has failed to fund it adequately, it's not getting the results it's supposed to get, and even some conservatives are backing away from it.)

Even more disturbingly, Williams admitted that "this happens all the time" and that "there are others" who take White House payola while pretending to be independent. Which leads us to wonder: how many other paid shills are out there masquerading as real journalists? How many other TV appearances are actually Administration-approved infomercials? When we turn on pundit shows and see Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity praising the White House's political agenda, are we seeing actual independent commentary or are we seeing Ministry of Truth propaganda?

The White House claims the Williams payola was an isolated incident, that there are no other journalists on the government payroll parroting what they're paid to say.

Putting it bluntly, I don't believe them. The Administration has been caught too many times telling blatant lies and using anything-goes ad campaigns to sell policy to be trusted on anything they say.

The Bush Administration should end this practice now. But since the White House doesn't seem to realize it did anything wrong (and not for the first time, either) it is up to journalists to uphold ethical standards and refuse such political payola. It sure isn't happening on Pennsylvania Avenue.