GOVERNMENT PAYOLA

A minor scandal erupted in the 1950s when word leaked out that private companies were secretly paying disc jockeys to play their records. That was private payola. Now we have something worse: government payola. The Department of Education paid $240,000 to Armstrong Williams, a talk show host and newspaper columnist, to promote the controversial No Child Left Behind Act.

This latest scandal is far from over. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell has launched an inquiry into the payments. The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau is looking into whether Mr. Armstrong violated the payola and sponsorship identification provisions of the communications act by failing to disclose that he had received government funds. Mr. Armstrong has admitted “an obvious conflict of interests” and has apologized for “my bad judgment.”

The administration has had similar cases arise, including fake news reports sent out to newspapers and broadcast stations by government agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Census Bureau and the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Video “story packages” sent out to television stations, describing programs in favorable terms, sound like independent news stories whereas they were prepared by government agencies or public relations firms under contract

to the government.

The Government Accountability Office, known as the congressional watchdog agency, sometimes has excused some government-produced explanatory videos and news stories as necessary to keep consumers informed. But the GAO has lately found some such products to be “covert propaganda” in violation of federal law. Two recent “story packages” were signed off by “Karen Ryan” and “Alberto Garcia,” giving the impression that they were independent reporters. Actually, they were government or public-relations firm employees or possibly just made-up names that would sound legitimate (and nicely ethnically diverse).

Not that the mainstream media are perfect. The months of undetected fakery by Jayson Blair hurt the reputation of The New York Times. Similarly, CBS News editors failed to spot suspicious details in documents purporting to show that President Bush got special favors as an air national guardsman before putting them on the air.

Just as harmful is a current habit of some broadcasting stations and newspapers to accept unquestioningly fake news stories that are actually government “covert propaganda.” They would do better to use their own reporting resources to track down other cases of government payola and leave the propaganda to the politicians.