Journalist payola nothing new
C'mon, if there's anything that even emits a hint of corruption, do you really think that Bill Clinton didn't have his piggy fingers in it?
Newsmax reports:
Ever since commentator Armstrong Williams admitted he took $280,000 to promote the Bush Administration's No Child Left Behind policy, reporters have been pretending that they're "shocked, shocked!" that any journalist would compromise his objectivity so blatantly.
The latest target is marriage expert Maggie Gallagher, who on Wednesday found herself in the crosshairs of Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz. Kurtz was questioning fees she collected for research performed for the Health and Human Services Administration.
Apparently Mr. Kurtz and the rest of the media ethics posse slept through the 1990s, when a number of reporters with much higher profiles than Williams and Gallagher supplemented their incomes with checks from the Clinton White House.
CBS News in particular seemed to have no qualms about some fairly blatant conflicts of interest, having Rita Braver and Linda Douglas cover the White House even though they both had financial relationships with the Clinton administration.
Braver's husband, Robert Barnett, who was the Clintons' Whitewater lawyer when Braver was assigned to the White House beat in late 1992, reportedly recused himself from his role as first-family attorney.
But in July 1993, Barnett was still up to his eyeballs in the Whitewater scandal, traveling to the White House after Vince Foster's death to collect papers investigators later said had been removed surreptitiously from Foster's office.
Barnett continued working for the Clintons in another capacity, as book agent, successfully negotiating $20 million worth of book deals for Bill and Hillary – beginning with Mrs. Clinton's 1998 screed, Dear Socks, Dear Buddy and continuing through Mr. Clinton's My Life last year.
Unless Barnett kept his Clinton paychecks isolated from the household budget, Ms. Braver likely benefited from the White House jackpot more than Williams and Gallagher put together – times 10!
If Ms. Braver ever mentioned her financial relationship to the White House during her news broadcasts, we missed it.
Braver is far from the only high-profile media personality whose spouse was on the Clinton payroll.
Time magazine's Matthew Cooper married longtime Clinton adviser Mandy Grunwald in November 1997. Hillary Clinton even threw Grunwald a baby shower at the White House in July 1998. At the time Cooper was covering presidential politics for Newsweek.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour married Clinton State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin in August 1998. Though Rubin presumably shared his administration paycheck with his new bride, the financial link was never an issue for the Armstrong Williams posse.
Sometime the cash flowed in the opposite direction.
As Byron York reported in 1998, CBS newswoman Linda Douglass [now with ABC] and her husband, an influential public interest lawyer named John Phillips, socialized often with Whitewater scandal figure Webster Hubbell and his wife, Suzy.
Within weeks of Hubbell's 1994 resignation from the Justice Department, said York, "Phillips put together a deal by which a California non-profit group paid Hubbell $45,000 to write a series of articles on the idea of public service.
"Later, Phillips and Douglass picked up much of the tab when they and the Hubbells flew to Greece for a ten-day vacation cruising the Aegean Sea. They stayed in touch after Hubbell pleaded guilty – and even after Hubbell went to prison."
Given examples like these, it would seem that the media ethics police have a lot of catching up to do before continuing the hunt for journalists on the Bush Administration payroll.
Corruption and hypocrisy, my, my, my. Just goes to reinforce one of my long-expressed adages, "for liberals, what you are, not what you do, is all that matters."
Newsmax reports:
Ever since commentator Armstrong Williams admitted he took $280,000 to promote the Bush Administration's No Child Left Behind policy, reporters have been pretending that they're "shocked, shocked!" that any journalist would compromise his objectivity so blatantly.
The latest target is marriage expert Maggie Gallagher, who on Wednesday found herself in the crosshairs of Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz. Kurtz was questioning fees she collected for research performed for the Health and Human Services Administration.
Apparently Mr. Kurtz and the rest of the media ethics posse slept through the 1990s, when a number of reporters with much higher profiles than Williams and Gallagher supplemented their incomes with checks from the Clinton White House.
CBS News in particular seemed to have no qualms about some fairly blatant conflicts of interest, having Rita Braver and Linda Douglas cover the White House even though they both had financial relationships with the Clinton administration.
Braver's husband, Robert Barnett, who was the Clintons' Whitewater lawyer when Braver was assigned to the White House beat in late 1992, reportedly recused himself from his role as first-family attorney.
But in July 1993, Barnett was still up to his eyeballs in the Whitewater scandal, traveling to the White House after Vince Foster's death to collect papers investigators later said had been removed surreptitiously from Foster's office.
Barnett continued working for the Clintons in another capacity, as book agent, successfully negotiating $20 million worth of book deals for Bill and Hillary – beginning with Mrs. Clinton's 1998 screed, Dear Socks, Dear Buddy and continuing through Mr. Clinton's My Life last year.
Unless Barnett kept his Clinton paychecks isolated from the household budget, Ms. Braver likely benefited from the White House jackpot more than Williams and Gallagher put together – times 10!
If Ms. Braver ever mentioned her financial relationship to the White House during her news broadcasts, we missed it.
Braver is far from the only high-profile media personality whose spouse was on the Clinton payroll.
Time magazine's Matthew Cooper married longtime Clinton adviser Mandy Grunwald in November 1997. Hillary Clinton even threw Grunwald a baby shower at the White House in July 1998. At the time Cooper was covering presidential politics for Newsweek.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour married Clinton State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin in August 1998. Though Rubin presumably shared his administration paycheck with his new bride, the financial link was never an issue for the Armstrong Williams posse.
Sometime the cash flowed in the opposite direction.
As Byron York reported in 1998, CBS newswoman Linda Douglass [now with ABC] and her husband, an influential public interest lawyer named John Phillips, socialized often with Whitewater scandal figure Webster Hubbell and his wife, Suzy.
Within weeks of Hubbell's 1994 resignation from the Justice Department, said York, "Phillips put together a deal by which a California non-profit group paid Hubbell $45,000 to write a series of articles on the idea of public service.
"Later, Phillips and Douglass picked up much of the tab when they and the Hubbells flew to Greece for a ten-day vacation cruising the Aegean Sea. They stayed in touch after Hubbell pleaded guilty – and even after Hubbell went to prison."
Given examples like these, it would seem that the media ethics police have a lot of catching up to do before continuing the hunt for journalists on the Bush Administration payroll.
Corruption and hypocrisy, my, my, my. Just goes to reinforce one of my long-expressed adages, "for liberals, what you are, not what you do, is all that matters."
posted by JASmius at 12:38 PM
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