money for nothing

Syndicate Executives Discuss the Latest Paid Pundit Scandal

By Dave Astor
Published: January 13, 2006 6:45 PM ET
NEW YORK
With Scripps Howard News Service (SHNS) the latest distributor to drop a pundit for taking un
disclosed payments, a question comes to mind: Is the main problem taking payments or not disclosing them?SHNS Friday dropped columnist Michael Fumento of the conservative Hudson Institute for not disclosing he had accepted money from Monsanto in 1999. Fumento wrote in praise of Monsanto as recently as his Jan. 5 column."Disclosure is the most important thing," said Creators Syndicate President Rick Newcombe. He noted that if a columnist hypothetically told Creators that he or she had taken money, "we would of course disclose it to the newspaper clients. If enough clients still wanted to run the column, we might not drop it."John Twohey, vice president for editorial and operations at Tribune Media Services (TMS), said: "Certainly accepting money from an entity you cover crosses a line. I can imagine exceptions, like going on the lecture circuit. But if columnists accept speaking fees from an organization they end up writing about, they would need to disclose that in the column."TMS was the syndicate that dropped Armstrong Williams a year ago after it was revealed that the broadcaster/columnist was taking money to promote the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind initiative. At around the same time, Maggie Gallagher of Universal Press Syndicate and self-syndicated columnist Michael McManus were also accused of accepting government money.Would syndicates reduce the chance of payola scandals if they signed more Op-Ed columnists who have journalism backgrounds rather than, say, think-tank backgrounds?............