Gallagher, Opinions for Sale!
Pro-Bush columnist got U.S. funding | ajc.com — How many of these situations do we have out there?? No wonder government scrutiny is at an all-time low. And how does all this fit in with “moral values?”
Washington — In 2002, syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher repeatedly defended President Bush’s push for a $300 million initiative encouraging marriage as a way of strengthening families.
“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 Tuesday. “I don’t know. You tell me . . . frankly, it never occurred to me” to disclose it.
Later in the day, Gallagher filed a column in which she said, “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.”
Yes, money so easily forgotten.
via K. Burel
What about tech journalists? Surely there are some who receive money for giving products favorable reviews.
“I would have, if I had remembered it.”
I wonder if she remembered to claim it on her tax return?
Why are we so obssessed with credibility?
I thought we read blogs to hear people’s opinions and listen to their _arguments_, their logical rhetoric about an issue. What difference does it make if they are paid to express their opinion? Would it or did it change her opinion? I highly doubt it.
This is even less controversial than fundraising in politics. People give money to politicians that share their own position. Rarely is a donor in a position to realistically change a politician’s position or vote. It’s the aggregate effect of an issue and party strategy (e.g Democrats and unions, Repubs and business) that affects the politicians’ votes, not individiual payments.
The government awarded these contracts because the writers/bloggers already supported their position, so they’re just getting paid to do what they would have done anyway.
“…so they’re just getting paid to do what they would have done anyway.”
In that case, we not only have a problem with ethics, but also wasteful spending by the government. 🙂
Fascinating!
One gal gets $21.5k to shill for the Republicrats, a guy gets nearly a quarter mil to shill for them and everybody’s shorts are in a twist.
Dan Rather tries to throw a Presidential Election, Chris Matthews nearly has “the Big O” and shows it with squeals of girlish delight when his idols are paraded during the Democan Convention and those freebies in favor of one particular party are not to be considered.
And on and on, ad nauseam on all sides.
Those are merely journalistic reports.
Fascinating.
. . . and disgusting.
She was actually on O’Reilly tonight. She states the payment was for a pamphlet she help them produce, not for talking nice about the administration’s policies. She stated her biggest mistake was not mentioning it to her readers.
T.C.Moore sez “Rarely is a donor in a position to realistically change a politician’s position or vote.”
Boy is that a naive statement! I’m sure no politician has ever been bought off by a special interest group 🙂
True journalists should never be put into a situation where their credibility comes into question. Yes, they may have opinions, but I would hope that we can trust those opinions to be the result of their own soulsearching and personal experience, not a payoff by some fatcat. Or worse yet, a payoff using MY TAX DOLLARS!
“Did I violate journalistic ethics by not disclosing it?” Gallagher said Tuesday. “I don’t know. You tell me . . “
Yes, she did violate ‘journalistic’ ethics. But I know a few PR girl who would give her high-fives.
But what’s a mere $20k? lol
Rod
Brotha2Brotha
Even the impression of impropriety is enough to stain everyone within the profession of journalism. These are indeed darks days for us all, and I am saddened that the impact is so far-reaching.
I suspect many writers have forgotten the meaning ethics. And not simply the definition, but the true meaning that we must internalize before we put pen to paper. I guess I was just too much of an idealist when I decided to go into this biz.
Thanks for highlighting it as you did, John. It’s nice to know pockets of trust continue to exist.
Carmi Levy
http://writteninc.blogspot.com
I try keeping fact, opinion and analysis separated. If somebody isn’t smart enough to do a thorough analysis based on facts, their opinion won’t have much value. A journalist is paid to gather facts and do analysis. Good journalism forms public opinions and gets people to see right from wrong. The facts are that Maggie has been a marriage expert, researcher, and advocate for nearly 20 years. Her research and expertise is why HHS hired her. She was able to cash in on her commentary. The government has the resources to gather facts and has an army of analysts at their disposal. My opinion is that the grabbing hands grab all they can. Her opinion is worth what it is worth. Maybe Ms. Gallagher is a big Bush contributer and this is how she was paid back, with a nice HHS contract. Big corporations play the same game. When an individual plays the game, the public outcry is tremendous. A corporation donates ten grand, it gets a $30 million contract and nobody even pays attention. She should of held out for more money. She sold herself cheaply. That’s the sin. Armstrong Williams knows how to play this game. He got something like a quarter of a million dollars because everyone does it. Look at what big media companies pay talk radio hosts these days. Maggie may be good enough for government work, but not good enough for television or radio. She may be just like the rest of the struggling masses. Another working girl in Washington, maybe she can become a lobbyist and make a few million dollars chatting with senators about fidelity or something important like that.
I shouldn’t have included the analogy to political donations.
What I really wanted to highlight is that our political discourse seems to put way to much emphasis on credibility instead of on logic. Politicians and other political actors seem more likely these days to attack a person’s credibility than the strength of their arguments.
That’s because these issues are so complex. So average people find them hard to understand, and so it’s easier and _more_effective_ to attack individuals rather than actually analyze and find the fault in various policies.
That complexity leads to more calls for Analysis to be done by journalists, so that everyday people can understand what’s going on. But entangled in all those complex policies are various assumptions about how the world works, about how people behave, and about how government policy affects people’s and company’s behavior.
Therefore the more Analysis that’s done by journalists, the more they have to confront these underlying assumptions. And the more biased they seem to look, and the more it feels like opinion is creeping into their writing.
On a particular topic, I feel like I can tell within 30 seconds whether a writer feels that all corporations and politicians are corrupt and the little guy is constantly getting screwed and has no hope. Surely you can tell that instantly in so many of these Blog comments.
The red/blue polarization of the country seeps into our writing because it undergirds how we think about the world, which facts we find important, and which direction we take our analysis.
Objectivity is dead.
(if not impossible)
So we might as well get paid to write.
And let the masses sort it out for themselves.
…I’m sorry, but…some of these comments are a bit…odd.
Do you routinely READ those “articles” in magazines that have “advertisement” printed clearly along the top edge of the page? Do, you say “oh yeah, this is good stuff….and so objective, too”. The point is, no…I’d bet that you skip those paid advertising articles because you know the views expressed are not those of the author, but what they were paid to write and told to write. Not much credibility, indeed.
It’s like reading a glowing restaurant review, only to find out the reviewer has an interest in the restaurant.
It is akin to having someone tell you they adore you, and compliment you, and hang on your arm…only to find out your MOTHER has been paying them a monthly fee to do it.
When a columnist writes their OPINIONS you are supposed to be gettingtheir insight. When a columnist writes someone else’s opinions because they’re taking money to take one viewpoint…it’s dishonest because it is NOT THEIR viewpoint…it’s advertising without the little disclaimer across the top, or tacked on the bottom: “the viewpoints expressed may or may NOT be the viewpoints of the author”.
When a journalist writes …they are SUPPOSED to be reflecting facts and other peoples’ opinions…after listening to both sides. I know, I know…..utopia.
Anyway, yeah, the dismay and complaints can be summed up in one line by Caesar…”Et tu, Brute”
> Objectivity is dead.
I can’t believe I just said this. I sound like Derrida and Foucault,
and my goddamn college English teacher at Berkeley.
I take it all back.
How about this: Objectivity is impossible, but a worthy goal.
I do believe this though:
Money does not necessarily corrupt. I find it completely believable that Gallagher separated in her mind the work she did for the government, and the writing she did later. One does not _necessarily_ influence the other. She should have informed her readers, so they can decide for themselves. But failing to mention it does not mean she sold her opinion.
I find that when someone is as deep an expert as she seems to be (or thinks she is), they put their opinion on a pedestal, and try to keep it separate from the dirty jobs they are paid for. After all the hard work, study, and analysis (paid or unpaid) that slowly contributed to their personal opinion, to let it be influenced by money would be unthinkable.
It’s personal, not professional, but backed up by years of experience. That’s why we ask retired statesman and politicians “what do you really think?”, because we suppose it comes from their personal experience and reflection, unbound from monetary entanglements or other forms of loyalty.
Everybody is going to think what they want. When government policy becomes so misunderstood, public opinion must be shaped for people to go along with what the government wants to do it might be time to rethink policy. Government policy should be a result of what the people need and believe in. Here we are with a government bending over backwards to provide democracy for Iraq and the government is paying columnists to tell us what we should need. Wasting money is one thing, wasting everyones time with propaganda doesn’t make the United States more secure. If it isn’t propaganda, it looks like it. I just hope the entire government doesn’t start using this kind of deception. The good thing is that this kind of stuff is isolated. If your policy is bad, the public will see through your smoke screen no matter how many mirrors are used. Health and Human Services should be looked at as the point of screw up. Most people would of taken the deal Gallagher got. This is a problem for the Bush Administration and they have plenty of more serious problems between Iraq and terrorism. With the HHS budget, you would think they could do the job for the President and American people more professionally or use some political smarts and cover it up more effectively. No wonder social security is all screwed up. If President Bush says social security is screwed up, the Democrats say Bush is screwed up. HHS is screwed up regardless of politics or party. If they can’t communicate what they are doing with their kind of budget, a columnists can’t help. Maybe the new Sec. will change this.
HHS web site
The application of technology is a passion for Sec. Leavitt. During his tenure as Governor of Utah, the state’s website was awarded “Best of Web,” offering more than 110 services online. As Secretary of Health and Human Services he is committed to unleashing the power of technology to improve the quality of care, reduce mistakes and manage costs.
HHS Facts
HHS employees — 66,639
HHS Budget, FY 2004 — $548 billion
HHS REPRESENTS ALMOST A QUARTER OF ALL FEDERAL OUTLAYS
HHS WORKS CLOSELY WITH THE SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
If Gallagher was starving, and there was no other way for her to survive another day without eating then perhaps her action may have been justifiable (and only for a sandwich– not $21,500). Of course this is not so. But it seems that the stakes are the same in a culture where bling bling is as much a necessity for survival as rice is in Ethiopa.
The basic software subset just won’t allow it. I want to do it myself.