By: Dave Astor Reaction to revelations that syndicated columnist Doug Bandow admits he took thousands of dollars from indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff to writes stories favorable to his clients has now begun. Bandow resigned from the libertarian Cato Institute after the news emerged yesterday.
"My view has always been that there are too few journalists left in journalism, and too many columnists with actual or potential conflicts of interest writing for mainstream newspapers," said columnist Cal Thomas, who's syndicated to nearly 600 papers via Tribune Media Services (TMS).
The conservative commentator told E&P Online that what Bandow did was "a big no-no" that "damages the credibility of everybody" who writes columns.
"I'm getting tired of this," Thomas added, alluding to other 2005 revelations about columnists on the take. One of them was Armstrong Williams, whose contract was terminated by TMS this past January -- hours after it became known he had received federal money.
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) columnist Connie Schultz told E&P Online: "Any serious journalist who still believes in this profession is outraged over Bandow's willingness to accept money from a lobbyist to write columns that cast his clients in a favorable light. As a journalist, it doesn't matter what political party was doing the buying. What matters is that Bandow was on the take."
Schultz, the 2005 Pulitzer Prize winner syndicated by Newhouse News Service, added that she's "appalled" at Bandow's description of his actions as a "lapse in judgment." She noted that "a lapse suggests a temporary or accidental stumble, while he admits to taking money from Abramoff '12 to 24 times' at $2,000 or so a pop. At that rate, it had become a second income."
And Schultz believes columnists of all ideologies are hurt by the Bandow revelations. "I don't think most readers, when faced with yet another story about yet another corrupt columnist, distinguish between conservative writers and those who are moderate or liberal," she said. "I wish they did, because the pattern is clear, but I don't think that's what happens. We're all tainted by the stain."
Writing on the Huffington Post site today, Martin Kaplan described this trend as "gasbags-for-hire."
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