HuffPost readers will certainly remember Armstrong Williams, the conservative pundit, and TV talk show host who took $240,000 from the Department of Education to promote the No Child Left Behind Act on his cable program and in other venues, including his syndicated column. He didn't disclose the deal because he couldn't disclose it without exposing the contract as fraudulent. (And possibly illegal; the Government Accounting Office said it violated the ban on "covert propaganda.") When USA Today brought the arrangement to light, everyone fled from it--the contract was disowned by all parties--because it was the political equivalent of payola in the record industry. His syndicated column was dropped, and his cable TV show was later taken off the air.
That was in 2005.
So the other day I'm clicking around the Web, following some links, and I come to the pundits blog at The Hill newspaper, which competes with Roll Call and The Politico in covering the daily business of Congress. There's Armstrong Williams, one of their pundits. What the...? Wanting to know exactly how this guy became a legitimate voice on national affairs again, I contacted The Hill and was told that Hugo Gurdon, editor in chief of The Hill, made the decision himself.
Here's my Q & A with him. Though there is some commentary in my questions I present the results without comment.
Q. When did Amstrong Williams join The Hill's pundits blog?
Hugo Gurdon: His first post was on Jan. 8, 2007.
Q: How did this come about that he was asked to join the pundits blog? Was it his idea? Yours? Someone else's?
Hugo Gurdon: It was our idea. We discussed the pros and cons and decided that we should proceed.
Q: Is it a paid position?
Hugo Gurdon: It is not a paid position.
Q: Why did you feel he deserved to be part of The Hill's pundit blog after what happened in 2005?
Hugo Gurdon: We felt that despite his poor judgment in the events you cite (and which he has acknowledged), Williams nevertheless had interesting views that would add to the mix of opinion on the blog. The blog is bipartisan, as you can see, with Republicans such as Williams, Keene, Donatelli, Christie and Feehery, and Democrats such as Press, Fenn, Davis and Budowsky. The blog was launched about a year and a half after the Williams controversy broke in mid-2005. By then, news and current affairs organizations were beginning again to invite him to give his opinion. We felt it was an appropriate time for him to restart his career as a pundit.
Q: This question requires some background: Not only is taking money from the government without disclosing it a capital offense in journalism, but in the field of public relations, which is the actual service he sold to the Department of Education, what Armstrong Williams did is called "pay for play," and it is also a cardinal sin in that profession, a point that was made at the time by Richard Edelman, CEO of a major PR firm in New York and an industry leader. He blogged about it when he read the USA Today piece:
This kind of pay for play public relations takes us back in time to the days of the press agent who would drop off the new record album and $10 to the deejay. It makes our industry's efforts to "clean up" behavior in newly created PR markets such as China and Russia look decidedly ridiculous (my favorite China anecdote is journalists in the mid 90s asking for $40 in cab fare to attend an interview when the newspaper was across the street from our office).
I know Ray Kotcher and Dave Drobis of Ketchum. I am sure that they would never tolerate this kind of contractual arrangement. I am also confident that they will take steps to assure that it never happens again.
Some things are black and white. We need to set a very high standard of disclosure for our business, with total transparency on funding sources and mission. We should also eschew any practice that calls into question the integrity of the information being disseminated. Let's try to turn this negative for our industry into a positive, by making a long term commitment to the best ethical behavior.
Given that the deal Williams entered into with the Department of Education violated the most basic kind of ethics there are, not in one but in four fields--journalism, broadcasting, government contracting, and public relations-- and given that it was a witting contract he signed for $240,000, and that he was an active participant in it, were you not concerned that among those who knew of these events and remember them today, he would, as a writer, subtract credibility from The Hill? After all, The Hill newspaper isn't a paid for and hidden propagandist for the Bush Administration, is it? Why would you hire someone who is-- okay, was?
Hugo Gurdon: The Hill's credibility is entirely solid. We are a non-ideological and non-partisan news organization, but we allow partisan and ideological opinion on our pages and websites from outside contributors.
Q: Okay, last question: How do you know that Armstrong Williams isn't taking money from people he says nice or interesting things about in his punditry for The Hill? Are you counting on him to disclose? I hope not, because that got some people in trouble last time. Plus, the official, Hill newspaper bio, telling readers who Armstrong Williams is and why we should care what he thinks, doesn't disclose. It makes no mention at all of the pay-for-play episode in 2005 that put him in the national spotlight and forced the Tribune Media Services to terminate its syndication agreement with Williams ("...readers may well ask themselves if the views expressed in his columns are his own, or whether they have been purchased by a third party," said Tribune at the time.)
Was leaving out the entire story The Hill's idea, or is that Armstrong Williams being cute again? And isn't what the Tribune service said then, ""...readers may well ask themselves if the views expressed in his columns are his own, or whether they have been purchased by a third party," as true today for his posts in The Hill's blog?
Hugo Gurdon: The Hill discussed the 2005 controversy with Williams before he began as a pundit in early 2007 and it was understood that he would not be doing that sort of thing again. My judgment is that he is an honorable man who, despite making a poor choice some years ago, nevertheless has something to offer website visitors seeking a wide variety of opinion on the politics of the day.