Disgraced media figure Armstrong Williams

Note: At least some Americans still look to their news media to perform their watchdog function, looking over the shoulder of government to help keep things reasonably honest. Sometimes, however, our journalists fall down on this part of their job, usually for money. Others fall prey to the tensions of their work, the need to constantly produce, and slip into fabrication and/or plagiarism--firing offenses for reporters. A few others, in the manner of self-important politicians, develop heads so big it's a wonder they can get in the office door; some such individuals are given to ill-advised romantic trysts. Some journalists who undergo disgrace recover quickly; others are forever finished in the news business.


In the years leading up to 2005, nationally syndicated columnist, conservative television commentator and PR agency owner Armstrong Williams appeared to have the word by the tail.

Williams, one of only a few prominent conservative African American media figures, who liked to introduce himself as a third-generation Republican, was doing well financially and was a darling of the Far Right.

Tribune Media Services dropped his column in 2005, however, after reports that Armstrong had accepted $240,000 from the George W. Bush administration to push Bush's No Child Left Behind initiative. Williams took in these funds, which were of dubious legality to begin with, through his PR agency, but his greater mistake was not revealing it to his newspaper and TV audiences. What he did was a blatant conflict of interest.

The Bush administration, of course, got away with paying a journalist to be a shill, but Williams' career as a columnist came to a screeching halt. Radio and TV, having fewer qualms about journalistic ethics, stuck by him, and needless to say, his Graham Williams Group PR firm rolls on.

Other reports revealed that around the same time, two more columnists had accepted smaller amounts of Bush administration money to push for Bush's marriage initiative, which should have been called W's "Just Say I Do Plan." These individuals were Maggie Gallagher and Michael McManus (whose column, ironically, was titled "Ethics & Religion"). These two columnists managed to survive their indiscretions.