No Pundit Left Behind - The FOIA Project
by GregP
[Subscribe]



GregP: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/10/211239/514

kos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/10/124045/880

Mon Jan 10th, 2005 at 22:12:39 EDT

This diary is a followup to Kos's post on the front page earlier today about Armstrong Williams being paid by the Department of Education (via a contract with Ketchum Public Relations and a subcontract with Armstrong's own firm) to promote the No Child Left Behind Act. The White House is already saying this was a mistake -- distancing itself -- but Williams hinted to David Corn that he wasn't the only one with this sort of government payout.
When I saw this item, it immediately jumped out at me, since, having worked in a government procurement office, and now for a smallish company with government business, I am deeply familiar with the nuts and bolts of the system -- how all this is done and what documents might be available through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

It struck me that this would be a good subject for a "distributed research" project -- where a number of people collaborate to try to find other similar arrangements by getting the documents and analyzing them.

[more below the fold]

Diaries :: GregP's diary ::

A Few Initial Points
For starters, almost every government payment to a private entity is backed up by a contract or grant instrument. Even if it's a very high level official who requests the work, they don't simply cut a check -- some GS-12 deep in the bowels of the bureaucracy is going to have to put together a contract. It's true that many Statements of Work (SOWs) are vague, and that some politically sensitive things tend to be poorly documented, but I guarantee you, when the Department of Education file on Ketchum comes out, there will be useful information in it.

Most dKos readers are at least somewhat familiar with the Freedom of Infomation Act (FOIA). It was enacted in the mid-1970s after Watergate, to guarantee public access to most government information. Sure, there are exceptions (classified "national security" stuff being the main one), but none of them would apply to Ketchum, or the HHS contract for their "Karen Ryan" videos, etc. In fact, the main way government agencies get out of complying with FOIA requests is arguing that they are too vague to fulfill -- i.e. if you sent a FOIA letter asking for "any contract with a PR firm which might have subcontracted with a known media figure." They'd get out of that one easily -- by telling you that you need to request a specific document -- only you don't know what documents exist.

Cracking the Code
That's where some knowledge of the system comes in handy. Procurement actions of significant dollar value have to be reported for data collection purposes to the General Services Administration's Federal Procurement Data Center (FPDC). It used to be relatively difficult to access their information -- you had to buy an expensive CD-ROM -- so most of the people with access to it were beltway bandits looking for info on other beltway bandits awards. Now, however, just in the last couple of weeks, they've put the data up in the Federal Procurement Data System - Next Generation (FPDS-NG) (note that it's https:, not http:), which is available to the public for free.

Now, for those of you not familiar with the system, that's a lot of data. How do you winnow it down? Simple -- the North American Industry Classification (NAICS) code (formerly SIC code). Every procurement action is coded this way in the data. For "Public Relations Agencies," it's 54182. Now, that's still a lot of data, but the government buys a lot more "IT Support Services" that it does "Public Relations Services." When you find the contract numbers for Ketchum, or other firms involved in PR, advertising, political consulting, etc, you now have specific documents to request. They can't tell you they don't know what to look for.

With Armstrong Williams, there was no direct contract between him and the government. This is likely the case with the other people he alludes to. Think of it like this -- you hire someone to build a house for you, and they hire someone else to install the plumbing -- your "prime contract" and "privity of contract" is still with the builder, and they're the ones you pay, and they're ultimately responsible for doing the job. The fact that the pundits aren't likely to have their names on the prime contracts, however, doesn't mean there are no documents available. In most cases, government agencies have the right to review and approve requests to subcontract parts of the job, and in almost all cases there would be correspondence between the government and the prime contractor mentioning the subcontractor.

The FOIA requests need to cover 1) the entire contract administration file which would reside in the procurement office, and 2) any correspondence between the "program office" (here, likely the agency's public affairs shop) and that specific contractor, or any subcontractors under them. This is a sufficiently narrow request that an agency can't claim it's too broad to respond to.

Adopt an Agency
This is where the concept of distributed research comes in. I don't have time to track down all the interesting leads from the database myself, and since I work for a company which does business with the government, I'd prefer to keep my name out of the press... but I can coordinate the effort via the Internet, and provide much advice based on my experience with the system. What I'd like to do is get people to volunteer to "Adopt an Agency" as a dKos community project. No rules, no leaders -- just private citizens excercizing their right to know under federal law. The project should start with departments we know to have such contracts, HHS and Education, and move out from there to other departments and agencies which have data in the FPDS database which looks promising.

I've set up a Yahoo Group, "No Pundit Left Behind" to serve as a forum for coordinating this effort. If you're interested, please join the group.

Some good info on FOIA in general is available at:

Society of Professional Journalists

Since this story hits a raw nerve in the punditocracy, though, I think the blogosphere is really the right forum for breaking this story... It's going to take some time and effort -- a few months probably -- but if we can "out" a few more Armstrong Williams' it's well worth it! From what Williams let slip today, it sounds like he may be just the tip of the iceberg, and misuse of federal funds for political purposes may be much more widespread in the Bush Administration.

The initial work will mainly be trolling through the FPDS data to see who is contracting for PR flacks... then comes the actual FOIA requests.

If you think this is a worthwhile community project, please recommend this diary so people will get a chance to see it.

The Conservative Marketing Machine
By Laurie Spivak, AlterNet
Posted on January 11, 2005, Printed on January 11, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/20946/
The Armstrong Williams story that surfaced last week is unquestionably a juicy one: the conservative, African-American commentator was paid a sweet $240,000 (in taxpayer dollars), by the Department of Education to promote President Bush's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation. Ketchum, a public relations firm, served as the intermediary, contracting with Williams to promote the controversial law in op/ed pieces and on his nationally syndicated television show "The Right Side," to urge other black journalists and producers to "periodically address" NCLB, and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for radio and television spots promoting the legislation.

Does Ketchum PR sound familiar? If it does, it's because these are the good folks who brought America Karen Ryan last year. Remember Karen? "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting." She was the PR hack who posed as a reporter back in early 2004 to tout President Bush's Medicare reform plan in fake news spots paid for by taxpayer dollars. In May, 2004, the nonpartisan General Accounting Office investigated the Medicare spots and determined that they were illegal because they violated a ban on publicly funded "covert propaganda." Lest a little thing like legality stop this administration, Karen Ryan surfaced again in October in her latest fake news story touting another of President Bush's programs just in time for the election – you guessed it – No Child Left Behind.

In looking at the Williams scandal, there is certainly no shortage of story angles to choose from. There is the classic hypocrisy angle, on full display in one of Williams' articles dated May 24, 2004, with the headline "The Big Education Sell Out" next to a grinning photo of the journalist. In the article, Williams – incidentally, a former aide to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas – criticizes the National Education Association (NEA) for caring more about "massaging the perception" of the public than about kids because of the union's opposition to No Child Left Behind. Classically satirical stuff from a guy who was paid a cool quarter million to massage public perception on the highly contentious NCLB legislation, while his own web site promotes him as both "independent" and "a principled voice for conservatives."

Of course, pundits and journalists tend to favor the "breach of journalistic ethics" angle. Williams, who regularly appears as a commentator on CNN and CNBC failed to disclose his $240,000 payoff to either news producers or audiences when touting the failing NCLB program as a sign of President Bush's unwavering support of the black community. While a CNN spokesperson said, "we will seriously consider this before booking him again," Tribune Media Services (TMS), the syndication service that distributed Williams columns to newspapers nationwide, went a step further and terminated its contract with Williams last Friday. According to TMS, Williams wrote at least four newspaper columns on NCLB in 2004, but never disclosed that he was on the Department of Education's payroll. How did Williams explain this egregious breach of ethics? "I am a pure entrepreneur and I made a business decision. I didn't think about my dual role as media pundit and entrepreneur." Williams now plans to self-syndicate adding, "I always feel I can sell my product better than anyone else."

Still, as appealing as these angles are, it's hard to ignore the "misuse of public funds" angle. A program called "No Child Left Behind" under-funded to the tune of about $7 billion a year – in effect leaving more than four million children behind – allocates a quarter of a million dollars in program funds (read taxpayer dollars) to pay a pundit to promote the failing program. Congressman George Miller, the top Democrat on the House Education Committee and co-author of NCLB, characterized the contract with Williams as "a very questionable use of taxpayers' money" that is "probably illegal," due to that pesky ban on using public funds for propaganda. What was the official response? The administration blamed the Department of Education, whose spokesman John Gibbons said that the contract followed standard government procedures, but added there were no plans for "similar outreach." So what's the moral of the story? One man's illegal covert propaganda is another man's outreach.

While each of these angles certainly makes for a tasty scandal story, they are all pieces of a much bigger story, one that is decidedly less delicious, and one that the mainstream media has consistently missed. This isn't just a story about a self-serving pundit "entrepreneur," or the erosion of public trust in the media, or hypocrisy, or using covert propaganda to sell controversial Bush programs like Medicare reform and NCLB, or the misuse of taxpayer dollars, or the undermining of the American people's trust in the public sector.

It is the story of the conservative movement and its well-oiled marketing machine; a packaging and distribution system of ideas that has been shaping American public opinion for more than a quarter century. It is also one of the most important stories behind the 2004 election.

While Democrats are still debating whether John Kerry was likeable enough or whether the Party ought to change its position on gay marriage and gun control, they are failing to see the big picture. What they were up against wasn't a poor debater, his Machiavellian consultant, and a portfolio of privatization policies, but a well-established, conservative movement with media outlets, think tanks, foundations and advocacy organizations as well as a host of pundits, journalists, consultants, and politicians all working collaboratively to advance their right-wing agenda (and many of the latter, like Williams, working the double shift as "entrepreneurs" and getting mighty rich).

While the leaders of the conservative movement like to boast that the power of their movement lies in the power of its ideas, the ideas of today's conservative movement are the same old failed policies from years gone by, spit-shined and with user-friendly names. The power of the conservative movement is not in its ideas, rather it is in the marketing of these ideas, primarily through effective packaging, promotion and distribution.

Take for example the Heritage Foundation, the foremost conservative think tank in America today. Paul Weyrich, Heritage's founder, attributes the ascendancy of the conservative movement to what he calls "the four M's: mission, money, management and marketing." The former director of Heritage's Academic Bank, Willa Johnson, explained: "Dealing with the academic community can be frustrating ... This community lacks marketing. We do that. They have an expertise and they don't know how to get it into channels. Heritage is an institution by which they can do that." What channels? According to Heritage's president Edwin Feulner, "We stress an efficient and effective delivery system [of ideas]. Production is one side; marketing is equally important ... Our targets are the policy-makers and the opinion-making elite ... the public gets it from them."

Indeed, according to the Heritage Foundation's annual report, in the first quarter of 2002, Heritage Foundation "policy experts" briefed three Cabinet secretaries, 33 senators, 48 members of Congress and 164 senior administration officials. That's almost 250 senior policymakers in just three months time. In terms of reaching the "opinion-making elite," as many of Heritage's spokespersons were seen on television in 2002 alone as during the entire 1990s. They appeared on more than 600 television broadcasts, more than 1,000 radio broadcasts, and in approximately 8,000 articles and editorials.

But it's not just the Heritage Foundation that markets conservative policies. William Baroody of the American Enterprise Institute, the first conservative think tank and the second most prominent in the nation, said, "I make no bones about marketing. We pay as much attention to the dissemination of product as to the content." What's more, today with distribution channels like Fox News, Sinclair Broadcast Group, and Clear Channel, conservatives are increasingly marketing their ideas directly to the public.

Armstrong Williams, Karen Ryan and Ketchum PR are all bit players in what is a big budget, major studio production. Even George W. Bush is just one of the actors in this production. The real story here is about the conservative movement and the ways that that movement – primarily through the marketing of conservative ideas – has molded and continues to mold public opinion in America. Conservatives are beating progressives with an effective marketing machine. However, no such infrastructure exists on the left.

While clearly conservatives' tactics (i.e., bribing pundit entrepreneurs and faking news spots) are deplorable, progressives can learn from their overarching marketing strategy. Progressives must frame their ideas in ways that resonate with the American public and disseminate those ideas through a variety of diverse channels in a coordinated effort.

The hopes of the Democratic Party in 2008 rest on one key question: will progressives spend the next four years viewing the world through the same narrow scope of the past, or will they embrace the big picture and see that in order to change the direction of the country, they must effectively counter the conservative movement?

© 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/20946/

Covering Elections There, Miscovering Them Here
By Danny Schechter, MediaChannel.org
Posted on January 11, 2005, Printed on January 11, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/20952/
Elections are breaking out all over. The Palestinians voted yesterday in a irregularity-plagued day of balloting. In the Ukraine, they needed two elections to get it right. And at month's end Iraqis will go to the polls whether it makes any sense or not, or whether they want to or not.

Relentlessly pushing this "demonstration election" on in the name of the big "D" (democracy) has been President Bush even as he concedes it is "hard." ("Hard" is a favorite Bushism first introduced in the Presidential Debate.)

Maureen Dowd commented on his comment in The New York Times on an op-ed page dominated by a pro-election feature by a former flack for the "Coalition" Provisional Authority. (Another CPA propagandist Dan Senor has just been hired by Fox News as an election analyst.)

"I know it's hard, but it's hard for a reason," Mr. Bush said on Friday, a day after seven G.I.'s and two marines died. "And the reason it's hard is because there are a handful of folks who fear freedom." If it's just a handful, how come it's so hard?

Then the president added: "And I look at the elections as a – as a – you know, as a – as – as a historical marker for our Iraq policy."

Unremarked upon was how the president's comments Friday came a day after the Congress debated major flaws in our own election, failings that most of our media brushed off as a "delay." Others dismissed the evidence presented as "conspiracy theories" even as Congress member Maxine Waters of California noted correctly that voting rights are not and should not be "outcome determinative."

Republican lawmakers castigated filmmaker Michael Moore by suggesting he was responsible for a discussion they dismissed as a "stunt." The right-wing Washington Times pressed California Sen. Barbara Boxer, who questioned the Ohio outcome, to distance herself from Moore.

She told them the movie Fahrenheit 9/11 "inspired but did not influence" her. Fahrenheit 9/11 had nothing to do with her challenge of Ohio's 20 electoral votes, but she nevertheless regrets not challenging the Florida electoral votes four years ago.

"Mr. Moore's Bush-bashing movie 'had nothing to do with what I'm doing now,' she says." (Note that's the newspaper's characterization of a film that just won the People's Choice award – not Boxer's.)

Michael Moore was not alone in raising these issues. My own film Counting on Democracy, aired in 2002, reported on an MIT-Cal Tech study that said that as many as 6 million votes went uncounted nationwide. Well before the election, The New York Times editorially was warning of major flaws in our voting system. A series of lead editorials noted that the irregularities we saw in Florida in 2000 had not been fixed. Activists went further itemizing the problems in Ohio. The Democratic Party patronized these concerns but did nothing about them. The GOP ignored them.

And so did the media.

Voting rights activists Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman write in the Columbus, Ohio Free Press, "In sworn testimony at public hearings convened with no help, cooperation or participation from the Kerry Campaign or the Democratic Party, scores of Ohioans told their infuriating stories. With relentless investigation, cooperation and participation from private citizens from all over the state, a gruesome portrait of GOP racism, fraud and contempt burned across the worldwide web.

"The mainstream media slept, scoffed and scorned us. But from Ohio, Florida, New Mexico and elsewhere, there emerged an irrefutable portrait of yet another stolen election."

The independent media and organizations like Media for Democracy have been covering this story even when mainstream media has not.

A related question arises: Why is it that groups like MoveOn which rallied members to protest voter exclusion and vote suppression do not financially support alternative and independent media that are telling the story rather than just raise millions for ads that further enrich the same media outlets that are covering up the issue?

Where is their media strategy?

And why is it that activist Democrats focus so much of their energy and resources on partisan Bush-bashing and Republican ridiculing rather than in helping build up a counter media? Who won't they enlist in the ranks of the media and democracy movement to insist on fairer coverage and a media that strengthens democracy rather than undermines it?

Some years ago, media historian Bob McChesney and journalist John Nichols published a pamphlet provocatively titled "It's the Media, Stupid."

I have seen nothing since that makes me challenge that basic insight, except to wonder why so many in the opposition to this government still don't get it?

© 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/20952/