Reading, writing and propaganda

Pechmann said that she had approved the New York Times article for ad credit because it met the ONDCP's criteria, and passed it to her superiors. Mathis wrote that "because the ONDCP's media campaign contractor [the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather] was aware of the Times' practice, senior managers flagged the article that had been reviewed by lower level managers, and no value was placed nor credit offered."

Pechmann gave details of the articles submitted by Teen Newsweek, a joint venture between the Weekly Reader Corp. and Newsweek. The magazine submitted three articles this spring for possible ad credits, according to Pechmann: a feature on the travails of actor Robert Downey Jr.; one on the "war on addiction"; and one on ONDCP's own effort, "What's Your Anti-Drug?"

(Last year, Salon reported that at least six major U.S. magazines had submitted anti-drug articles to the ONDCP in an attempt to qualify for ad-credit dollars. The magazines were U.S. News & World Report, the Sporting News, Family Circle, Seventeen, Parade and USA Weekend.)

Informed that articles had been submitted for White House approval, Teen Newsweek publisher and editor in chief Roseanna Hansen said, "It's news to me ... It's possible." Hansen, who was on medical leave from January to March, said she was aware that ONDCP advertised in "several publications" published by Weekly Reader Corp. "Our articles are selected for their news value, not for any other reason," Hansen said in a subsequent voice message, adding "I'm not aware of anything along the lines you're describing, of articles submitted for financial credit."

Debbie Nevins, Teen Newsweek's managing editor, said that two articles adapted from Newsweek, "War on Addiction" and "Robert Downey Jr. Takes It One Day at a Time," ran in her Feb. 19, 2001, edition, and that one short, internally generated piece, "What's Your Anti-Drug?" on ONDCP's effort of the same name, ran on Feb. 26.

Terry Bromberg, president of Lifetime Learning Systems, a Weekly Reader Corp. (WRC) sibling to Teen Newsweek, is in charge of selling advertising for several WRC magazines. He told Salon that while Teen Newsweek itself ran no ONDCP ads, five publications in his stable did. They were Read and Current Science, which are published every two weeks; and Career World, Writing and Current Health 2, which are monthlies. He admitted that numerous WRC articles, possibly including the three from Teen Newsweek, were submitted for evaluation. But he said they were submitted not out of a desire to maximize profits but simply because his magazines ran out of issues to run free ads it owed the ONDCP. (Media companies from whom the ONDCP makes ad buys owe the White House matching ad time, but can redeem the time owed by submitting content for ONDCP evaluation. The process is explained in greater detail below.)

According to Bromberg, last October the ONDCP bought three ads in the five magazines listed above; it was therefore owed three free ads. Bromberg said the company wanted to run the three free ads, but simply ran out of time -- so it had to submit the articles. "The only reason it occurred is that the advertising campaign started later in the fall than we anticipated -- we ran out of issues," he said. "If the school year had run longer, we would have gladly run the third free ad. And so there would have been no need to submit the articles. In fact, we would not have submitted the articles."

In any case, Bromberg said, "The WRC 100 percent complies with our relationship with Ogilvy, which we are pleased to continue by carrying ONDCP advertising next year."

Newsweek itself would neither confirm nor deny that its licensee had submitted articles to ONDCP. Director of media relations Ken Weine said, "To our knowledge, no such effort was made as you describe. We would not believe any effort to obtain financial credit for any editorial content published under the Newsweek logo is appropriate. To our knowledge, no Newsweek salesperson was involved with this if it did happen."

Next Page: Why a New York Times article satisfied the ONDCP's "message platforms"

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