Letters to the editor

White House protest letter draws readers' derision Plus: Do music videos give blacks a bad rap? McCain's anti-Confederate flag talk doesn't fly.

Apr 24, 2000 | White House blasts Salon
(04/20/00)

Housman's letter of complaint reads like a hasty attempt to cover his and his colleagues' asses after an embarrassing -- and enlightening -- exposi of some of his office's especially manipulative and shady tactics.

The popularity of the story itself proves the point. If the public and the media were so well-informed about this deplorable government program, as Housman argues, why did it break across front pages all over the country? If everyone already knew it was happening, why should it be news? Housman should take notes: We have a right to know, while watching television, what kind of paid agenda is at work. We have a right to know when the government is paying to assault us with subtle ideological messages. Housman, and the networks, have an obligation to tell us.

-- Ameer Youssef

The first clue that Robert Housman's complaint to Salon about Daniel Forbes is all bluster is his selection of a straw man, "secrecy." In truth, although there were congressional hearings and considerable press coverage attending passage of the original legislation, Congress was not advised -- then or later -- that the ONDCP would be accepting influence over content as payment in kind for the conventional advertising still due them from media outlets under the terms of the original purchases. Although one can infer that the ONDCP would have preferred to keep Congress (and the public) in the dark, Salon's readers were not told "secrecy" was a major issue. Indeed, the word "secret" was used only once, in the headline for the first article; it was not in Forbes' text.

What Forbes and most other commentators were concerned about is the blurring, or actual erasure, of the sharp line which should separate paid advertising from creative content. Concern over how that practice -- by a government agency, no less -- compromises the First Amendment was the question discussed with varying degrees of intensity by nearly every commentator in the wake of both articles.

One reads Housman's wordy protest looking in vain for any mention of the First Amendment; it's as if the folks at the ONDCP has never heard of it -- a curious ignorance displayed by their scheme in the first place -- and apparently still uncorrected.

-- Tom O'Connell

Hooray for Salon for printing the letter from Housman criticizing reporter Daniel Forbes' article concerning government financial incentives given to television and print media sources who will publish articles and cant sit-coms to support government policies concerning drugs and drug use. And an even bigger hooray to Forbes for answering that letter in such a prompt and devastating manner, making the White House flack appear to be just what he is, a propagandist, who will leave truth twisting in the wind for policy's sake.

There can be no more obvious sign of the complete failure of the drug interdiction policy and the criminalization of drugs than the fact that anyone imprisoned on a drug charge is likely to have a greater array of drugs made available to him in jail than on the street. A ham-handed attempt to insert behavior modifying messages in popular media by government operatives would be laughable in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta -- who is writing the government's plots?

--Charles Whittington

Please register my support for Daniel Forbes. For the White House to nit-pick minor details of Forbes' articles confirms that Washington believes it is perfectly right to advertise its message without disclosing the fact that it is, in fact, paid advertising.

-- Leonard E. Aron

I just read Robert Housman's letter to Salon about David Forbes article, and Forbes' response. While I believe there are honest differences in their points of view, I can't help but feel Salon does owe Housman an apology and retraction. Forbes' slant is clearly to portray the ONDCP policies as sneaky, shady and devious by referencing aspects of the policies that some people are unaware of.

Concocting impure motives where there are none is just the sort of reporting we don't need. Even if Forbes' article were the gospel truth, the story is silly and inconsequential. I like Salon a lot. It isn't worthy of you to defend such poor reporting.

-- George Brown

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