By arthur Weinreb
January 11, 2005
Last Friday it was revealed that radio commentator and syndicated columnist, armstrong Williams had received $241,000 from the U.S. Education Department to promote the government’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) laws. The payment was for advertisements and for giving air time to education department officials, including the education secretary. as part of the agreement, Williams, who is a black conservative commentator, was to use his influence with other black journalists to get them to speak or write about NCLB. The funds were paid to Williams through his Washington D.C. public relations firm.
after the agreement was reported in USa Today, Williams immediately acknowledged that if people thought that he had sold his opinions to the government for cash, it was a "fair assessment". On January 10, Williams issued a written apology, acknowledging that his actions were wrong and that he had "stepped over the line". Williams promised his listeners and viewers that it would never happen again and that he accepts the consequences of his actions (Tribune Media has cancelled his column).
The crux of the problem is not that he was being paid to state certain positions that he believed in anyway. The problem arose because he failed to disclose the fact that he was receiving money for giving certain opinions so that readers and listeners would have all of the facts at their disposal in which to judge his commentaries. In this regard, armstrong Williams is certainly not alone.
as Newsmax.com pointed out, Williams is not the only one who has not disclosed conflicts of interest. One of the examples that Newsmax mentioned was that of CBS. CBS often touts books that are published by Simon and Shuster without disclosing the fact that the publishing company is a division of Viacom, as is the network.
Then there was James Carville. On an episode of CNN’s Crossfire in the wake of Francoise Ducros, former PM Jean Chrétien’s communications director having called George W. Bush a moron, Carville engaged in a spirited defence of Canada and the government without disclosing the fact that he had worked as a paid political consultant for the governing Liberals.
It is easy for the mainstream media to single out armstrong Williams. after all as a black conservative he is the liberals’ worst nightmare. Nevertheless the problem of the failure to disclose conflicts of interest goes a lot further than one syndicated columnist.