Maggie Gallagher, a newspaper columnist who has written frequently about the marriage movement (and also against same-sex marriage), accepted $20,000 from the Federal Government in 2002 to write materials promoting the Bush administration’s Marriage Initiative. Meanwhile, she failed to disclose that interesting fact to her readers even while she preached the benefits of the Bush Initiative to them.
Now she claims that it never even occurred to her that there was a conflict of interest there. Frankly, I think Maggie’s too smart for that, but I guess even the smartest among us can overlook the obvious.
Maggie is a leading writer (perhaps the leading writer) against same-sex marriage, so I’d be delighted to see her discredited. No one has less interest in her defense than me. Nonetheless, this is not a big deal. Why? Because, given Maggie’s work before 2002, there is no question in my mind that she would have supported Bush’s marriage initiative – and supported it in column after column after column – even if they never paid her a cent.
Nor is this like the other recent right-wing-Journalist-taking-federal-money scandal, because Maggie was not being paid to to put certain content in her newspaper columns or to try and talk up the initiative among other journalists. She was being paid to write pamphlets and speeches for the federal government, which she did. Presumably, they would have paid her even if she had quit writing her column; Armstrong Williams cannot say the same.
Should she have disclosed? Yes. Does this make her an illegitimate and untrustworthy source, like Armstrong Williams?
Alas, no.
So, if you support a policy, it’s OK to place yourself on the government payroll and also write about it? That’s oddly illogical. Thus, it be worse if I disagreed with a policy, but agreed to write about it after being paid “$20,000? Either way, I am taking money from the government and than turning around and getting paid, again, to write about a policy I am also working on . . . and never disclosing it.
Amp, I have to disagree also. When a journalist is writing his/her own opinions, all that is at stake is ego and principle–big motivators, to be sure, but not *binding*. If Maggie Gallagher found out that the Marriage Initiative didn’t work, or in fact went *against* things she believed, she was free to say so as long as the views she was expressing were entirely her own.
Taking payola means giving up that ability or desire to question and contradict. If Mrs. Gallagher had discovered that the Marriage Initiative was a sinister lie, and wished to say so, she couldn’t. She was obligated to say what she was being paid to say.
If you pay someone to have sex with you, they’re still a whore even if they would have done you for free.
As far as I know, that’s simply not true.
She was hired to write some pamphlets and a speech summing up marriage research from her POV; if she had shocked the administration by writing a piece from a feminist or pro-gay point of view, they wouldn’t have used her materials, but she would still have been paid. At no point (from what I understand) did she take any money to support any point of view in her column, or accept any obligation to support any program or point of view in her column; she would have been free to say “Bush marriage initiative is a sham” in the column.
“she would have been free to say “Bush marriage initiative is a sham”? in the column. ”
Not if she ever wanted another writing job with HHS.
It doesn’t matter to me that the payoffs would affect her view. Its not just the appearance of impropriaty here, but the idea that people who support the President are getting pay offs. Doesn’t matter if the payola affects their view. Making work for these people has a negative impact on its own. Putting these people on the payroll affectively turns their work into propaganda. Writing for the government on the same issues you write on as a “journalist” is an unavoidably corrupt system.
So BStu, if the women’s shelter where Bean works gets a government grant, does that mean that her writing here and elsewhere on the subject of domestic violence are corrupt?
No. I think that if Bean was a widely published author writing about domestic violence & she was paid by the admin to write pamphlets/manuals about domestic violence that that would be corrupt in BStu’s view.
So if you’re well known and professional, working for the government makes you corrupt, whereas if you’re a peasant, it’s cool?
I guess I’m not following the logic here.
Lots of people have written for the government. It certainly could be the case that people censor themselves so as to maintain access to that lucrative federal paycheck, but it doesn’t seem (to me) any more corrupt than any other work for hire.
(I’m keeping my Dr. Seuss books, even though Geisel wrote pamphlets for the government during the war.)
Did Geisel write pamphlets for the government that promoted the same issues/causes that his books did?
Look, if I get paid to write columns, and in those I promote same-sex marriage, and I get paid by the admin to write pamphlets promoting same-sex marriage, it is my duty to disclose that. If, however, I get paid by the admin to write pamphlets on bathroom safety I don’t need to disclose that since it is not related to my primary profession.
And, yeah, if you make money from your columns you are corrupt whereas if you are writing comments on blogs and make no money from promoting your values you’re cool.
That seems an impossibly high standard, one that means the government can never conduct a public relations campaign that uses well-known figures unless it can convince them to work for free.
Actually, the standard falls on the shoulders of the writer. It’s fine to accept the position & the money (IMO), but you’ve got to disclose it in anything that you write related to the job you did for the gov. I see neither the shame nor the difficulty in doing that.
It’s not difficult, for one writer on one job. What do you do once you’ve been writing for thirty years? Your disclosure is going to be ten times as long as your piece. Who’s going to publish it?
Maggie’s been writing about marriage for 20 years, but in this instance all that would have been requried is “Full disclosure: I’ve been paid to write about marriage for the Department of Health and Human Services, and also for a think tank which received some federal funding.” Realistically, few if any writers would be faced with the problem you describe.
In that unlikely event, someone’s disclosure can be “I’ve done some paid writing for organizations that have a stake in the outcome of this debate, including the federal government. For more details, visit http://www.myname.com/disclosure“.
Well, that’s true. And I do agree that Gallagher should have disclosed in her particular situation.
Exactly. And she could have gloated about how she got paid to write what she would have written for free on top of it.
Amp, if she had a contract–take $$$ and write these things–and didn’t, she’s breaking a contract. Even if it wasn’t a contract, you can only pull that shit once. If you want to stay on the paid-consultant circuit, you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
Her explanation that she just forgot is very telling.
Amp,
It’s true that the payoff to Maggie Gallagher are unlikely to be a substantial influence on her stated views. But I don’t think that’s really the issue. The issue is the use of taxpayer funds to subsidize useful journalists and columnists–whether or not the money are going to change their views substantially, they do funnel taxpayer money to people solely on the basis of their agreement with the administration on controversial political topics. (If the Bush administration decided to send $100 from the DoD budget to everyone who publicly supported the Iraq war in print prior in March 2003, this would be deeply objectionable–even though it couldn’t possibly change the views that have already been expressed.)
Yeah, I know that Gallagher was doing a “job” for the federal government in return for the pay. Ho ho ho. In reality it seems pretty transparently a sinecure granted to her in return for her views.
Even if she would have supported the cause regardless, we really have no way of knowing how it affected her use of column inches.
a hypothetical example: if an Oregon DV shelter gave amp 1000 dollars to talk up a program targeted to earn matching funds for building a new center.
There’s a good chance amp would post on it the second it was brought to his attention, as it falls smack dab in his field of political interests. so amp posts on it 3 times, about how deserving the charity is, about the political support and resistance coming from city hall (and featuring some unpleasant quotes from some jerk who thinks that money would be much more useful buying a parking lot or something) and a paypal link, encouraging readers to give a few bucks, as matching funds only work when charity pays for half the cost.
Amp is doing a good and noble thing in this hypothetical example. He’s lending his political voice to a cause he strongly beleives in. he even happens to be getting paid a small fee for talking it up.
but if he didn’t disclose they gave him that money, if and when readers find out about it, we would be forced to wonder; “yeah, amp thinks it’s a good idea, but would he have brought it up 3 times if they hadn’t given him money?”
of course, this is all hypothetical. I can’t recall Amp ever posting on such a topic. and even if he had, and even if they DID pay him 1000 dollars, I imagine amp would tell us in the first post on it that the DV shelter fund was paying him as a consultant, and he’d probably just turn around and give it all back to them anyway.
That Amp is a real mensch.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying that Maggie shouldn’t have disclosed. On the contrary, I think she should have, as a matter of ethics. Not disclosing creates significant conflicts of interest, as several posters here have pointed out.
Nonetheless, I don’t think the circumstances here leave her entirely discredited. I think there’s a gray area between “entirely innocent” and “entirely discredited,” and it’s in that area that Maggie belongs.
I don’t know if, at this point, I can even place her in the grey area. If this was her only discrepancy/mis-step, then yes. But there are other things that she has done that lessen her credibility in my eyes. See Echidne’s recent post for another problem.
I disagree, Jake. Being a single mother doesn’t discredit Maggie’s views that single motherhood is a bad thing, in any logical way I can see.
>> So, if you support a policy, it’s OK to place yourself on the government payroll and also write about it? That’s oddly illogical.
>> The issue is the use of taxpayer funds to subsidize useful journalists and columnists-whether or not the money are going to change their views substantially, they do funnel taxpayer money to people solely on the basis of their agreement with the administration on controversial political topics.
To paraphrase: it is only acceptable to contract with the government to write on a policy area about which you oppose the curent officeholder. Or to contract with for taxpayer funds to produce writing on subject matter about which you are highly knowledgable but about which you have no opinion. Or, at least, have not and will not express an opinion in print. Or, perhaps the opposite: it is not a subsidy if you are contracted to write about topics and policies for which you have little knowledge regardless of your opinions. Or somesuch.
One wonders at the sort of short list from which some of Maggie’s detractors would have worked if they had been tasked with the job to contract for the HHS in this instance.
Perhaps the government should use only those writers who write for no charge, regardless of their opinions.
The issue of disclosure, as Ampersand has described it, is a different area and Maggie’s case appears to be located in a grey area.
As I understand it, Maggie’s publishers have not claimed that the HHS contract posed, or now poses, an obstacle to publishing her opinion pieces on marriage issues — including the marriage initiative. Disclosure would have removed the *appearance* of impropriety. The *appearance* has been much embellished by the Williams case which, unfortunately, has been used to bash Maggie and to attack the credibility of herself and to attempt to smear the views she has expressed on marriage.
This speaks to surface rather than substance, but it is a writer’s responsibility to protect her reputation, and the credibility of her publishers, by disclosing in a reasonable manner and to a reasonable extent. Without the Williams case, Maggies misstep would have drawn little attention — and rightly so.
But what is the ethical issue in the grey area? What are the significant conflicts of interest that have been created by Maggie not disclosing the HHS contract — that presumably would not have existed otherwise? In my view, the greyness is due to the pliable notion of objectivity in journalism rather than the ethics of Maggie.
Admittedly, I don’t see a substantial conflict of interest, but I’m interested in the perception that an ethical issue is at stake. What are the criteria that might be applied with equal insistence to writers with whom many here would agree on controversial political topics?
The issue of disclosure, as Ampersand has described it, is a different area and Maggie’s case appears to be located in a grey area.
Only in Mrs. Gallagher’s mind and, apparently, in yours.
She took money in order to promote particular views and failed to disclose this. When discovered, she first played stupid (claiming she didn’t know if it was or was not ethical) and then forgetful.
Your attempt to defend this by deciding that any critic of Mrs. Gallagher would excuse the same behavior in a liberal columnist is, what’s the polite word, fanciful.
I would defend the same behavior in a liberal columnist.
It’s not nothing; she ought to have disclosed. But big whoop.
As opposed to Armstrong, who was highly and clearly unethical in his actions.
>> Only in Mrs. Gallagher’s mind and, apparently, in yours.
Even if they had known of the 2002 HHS contract, her publishers say they would not have objected to her subsequent opinion pieces although they would have asked her to disclose it as a precaution. And even with this tempest in a teapot, they say that they will continue to publish her writing.
Amp,
I don’t think that the fact that she was a single mother lessens her creditability. It’s the fact that she was a single mother and then says:
Do adults, or do they not, have a basic obligation to control their desires so that children can have mothers and fathers?
Do as I say, not as I do. I haven’t seen a quote from her in which she apologizes or shows regret for the fact that she was unable to control her own desires at an earlier point in her life.
Chairm,
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say. Do you not think that she should have disclosed it?
although they would have asked her to disclose it as a precaution
Exactly. So if it’s such a little thing, why didn’t she disclose it? You can’t have it both ways.
1. The HHS contract was not unethical in itself — neither for HHS nor for Gallagher. And similar contracts between other parties (liberals included, naturally) are not unethical.
2. Her opinion piece about the marriage initiative was not unethical in itself — neither for Gallagher nor for her publishers.
However, a columnist and her publishers each have a responsibility to take reasonable precautionary steps to protect one another’s reputation against detractors. Normally, the lack of mention of the HHS contract would not have raised such a stink; a line about the contract in her bio blurb, for instance, would have sufficed and would not have changed anything about the two points I mentioned at the top of this comment.
The point of such a disclosure in this instance would have been hyper-CYA in a superficial political sense. Neither Gallagher nor her publishers were attempting to hide some shady deal involving payola.
Granted, there is a gray area due to the *perception* of a conflict of interest that some see but which is not a slam dunk. The adage that perception is reality, is usually nonsense in fact, but in the politically intense world in which SSM is debated the adage is a useful if cynical guideline. Recency with theWilliams case, for example, changed the field of perception.
If asked for their guidance, her publishers probably would have advised Gallagher to mention the HHS contract and she would have complied easily. Likewise if her publishers had asked (as both now say they will ask of columnists routinely). As it happened, another columnist asked and she was quick to comply.
That’s a lot of verbiage to say “A brief mention would have made this whole brouhaha go away.” Which is the problem. If it really were no biggie and it influenced her not a jot, why the “I don’t know if it was unethical/oopsie I forgot” nonsense?
Jake, remember that to people like Maggie Gallagher, morality is only a club with which to belabor others.
Forgetting to disclose an ethical contract is a ‘biggie’ only to the extent that the usual noisy suspects have hyped it in an attempt to smear a reputation.
Not to belabor the point, but if you do think the contract actually influenced Gallagher, then, you haven’t been paying attention.
If you don’t think it did influence her but also argue that this is a ‘biggie’ because appearances are more important, then, count yourself among the usual suspects who have expended too much verbiage on this already.
the usual suspects who have expended too much verbiage on this already
I count four posts on this thread by you alone, Chairm–do you really think this is not worth discussing, or is that a roundabout way of saying “Shut up, liberals”?
I do find it funny that you portray this as ‘forgetting to disclose,’ as Mrs. Gallagher’s first story was that she didn’t know if it was ethical and only when that brought snickers claimed she ‘forgot.’
The usual suspects self-identify with their repeated attempts to smear. They are not limited to one segment of the political spectrum.
And, yes, if someone has nothing more than a smear to offer, they ought to can it, imo.
There are a few conservatives who have publicly stated that, on point of principle, she should have mentioned the HHS contract, but they acknowledge that they hold conservatives to a significantly higher *aspirational* standard than is routinely followed in Washington by people of various political stripes.
This isn’t all about you mythago (or me), but even with six comments you have yet to demonstrate that there was actual wrongdoing about which to complain — independant of your SSM bias against Gallagher.
In good faith, what is the substance of your complaint about her conduct?
Gallagher’s professional allegience to her publishers and readers (writing about her knowledge and opinions) did not conflict with her contract to write of her knowledge and opinions of marriage for the government and taxpayers (i.e. meeting the specifications of the HHS contracted work). And vice versa. Her writing for one was not an unusual privilege subject to the grant of permission from the other.
As a tactical measure, a mention of the ethical HHS contract would have removed the excuse for the sort of smears and vague allegations of payloa.
It’s ironic that you demand that Maggie be given the benefit of the doubt, but when people disagree with you, rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt you complain about bias and imply that their answers so far have not been in good faith.
As for Maggie, she put herself in a position where she was both being paid for her best, good-faith opinions; and accepting $40,000 from people who would, I think it’s safe to say, be unlikely to make such job offers in the future if Maggie were to go against the Conservative party line in any significant fashion. So Maggie’s financial interests may have put pressure on her to not freely and fully consider issues she wrote about in her column. In particular, Maggie put herself in a position where her financial interests went against her feeling free to change her mind.
That creates a conflict of interest. (That you refuse to see the obvious, glaring conflict of interest doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.)
The long-accepted way for journalists and scholars to resolve such a conflict of interest is disclosure, so that both readers and editors can decide for themselves if they think the conflict of interest. Maggie chose not to disclose. She thus deprived her readers (and editors) of the information they needed to judge who was speaking to them when they read Maggie’s columns.
That – not just a failure to cover her ass – is what Maggie did that was wrong.
>> Should she have disclosed? Yes. Does this make her an illegitimate and untrustworthy source, like Armstrong Williams? Alas, no.
Appearances might lead a reader (of Gallagher’s column) to the perception of the potential for a conflict of interest. Just how significant is that potential? A reasonable critic would acknowledge the extent of the grey area before claiming an unethical conflict existed in fact.
Her publishers don’t see unethical conduct. They’ve said they would have published her column even if the HHS contract had been mentioned. They continue to publish her column after the kerfuffle over disclosure.
While one might feel that the potential for conflict of interest was highly significant, that proposition is still based on one’s perception of appearances and not on actual wrongdoing. In Gallagher’s case, a mention of the contract could have been a plus rather than a negative.
In the current climate of heightened sensitivity due to the recent Williams case, a mention in her old columns would have been particularly helpful to readers today. But that retrospective view also recognizes that circumstances have changed and the lack of mention of the HHS contract has become a lightening rod.
For some harsh critics, the contract itself raised a question and the lack of its mention provided the answer. Some have carried their criticism far beyond the possibility that she “could have” felt constrained from changing her opinion about marriage policy.
But even if that criticism is taken as more than a thin reed, Gallagher’s expressed views have been consistent both before and after the HHS contract. I suppose she might now show these critics wrong by becoming inconsistent on marriage policy.
Gallagher is not guilty until proven innocent. A reasonable reader would acknowledge that over the years she has shown herself to be credible and deserves the benefit of the doubt.
IMO, an over-dependance on mere appearances to draw conclusions about allegations of unethical conduct, and ascribing motive based on premonitions, will leave the gates wide open for distorted claims that disregard the depths of demonstrated integrity.
I appreciate your previous response and will return to your main point — which I think is correct but is also misleading in this case.
>> The long-accepted way for journalists and scholars to resolve such a conflict of interest is disclosure, so that both readers and editors can decide for themselves if they think the conflict of interest.
Maggie is not a staff reporter and she does not hire/fire or supervise reporters from the editorial desk of a news gathering organization. She does not assign stories to staff members whose responsibilities to uphold objectivity are part and parcel of their contribution to the newspaper.
She wrote an opinion piece, not an article for a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. The HHS contract was not a source of funding for her column. The content of her work for HHS did not conflict with her expression of opinion in newspapers.
>> Maggie chose not to disclose. She thus deprived her readers (and editors) of the information they needed to judge who was speaking to them when they read Maggie’s columns.
A reasonable reader can see that Maggie was speaking her own mind. What she wrote in that opinion piece was consistent with the views she chose to publicly express both before and after the HHS contract. You have noted that in your original post.
She did not change her opinion to align with policy. Mention of the contract would have been trivial, but given the Williams case this has become a lightening rod.
She writes a syndicated column in which her opinion is clearly a form of advocacy. Her column is bought by her publishers primarily for its point of view on certain areas of expertise. The relevance of the source of her bias is much less relevant than the substance of her arguments.
Although lack of mention of the contract did not hide the source of her opinion. It may have been wrong — as a tactical mistake or a lapse in memory — but lack of mention was not wrong in the sense a choice to embark on an ethical lapse.
I’ll leave off now.