Wash. Times reporter responds to Media Matters
SUMMARY: Washington Times reporter Audrey Hudson, mentioned in a Media Matters item about news coverage of a client represented by lobbyist Jack Abramoff, responded to the item in a comment posted on Media Matters' website and on her personal weblog.
A Washington Times reporter mentioned in Media Matters for America's December 21 item about news coverage of a client represented by lobbyist Jack Abramoff responded to the item in a comment posted on Media Matters' website and on her personal weblog. The Media Matters item noted that Abramoff, in representing the Northern Mariana Islands, wrote a memo outlining a strategy to attack an Interior Department official; it also pointed out that two columnists known to have taken money from Abramoff wrote columns about the Northern Mariana Islands that also criticized the Interior Department official. The item further noted that those columns were relatively unique: The Northern Mariana Islands matter received little other media coverage, the bulk of which consisted of an op-ed and seven news articles in The Washington Times.
The journalist who wrote those seven news articles, Audrey Hudson, responded on her blog and in a comment posted on Media Matters' website, which appears at the end of the original item:
APOLOGY DEMANDED
IN MY ENTIRE CAREER AS A REPORTER, I HAVE NEVER BEEN OFFERED, NOR WOULD I EVER ACCEPT MONEY OR A BRIBE TO WRITE A STORY, NOT FROM JACK ABRAMOFF, NOT FROM ANYONE. THE INSINUATION IN THIS REPORT THAT I DID IS WRONG AND LIBELOUS. MORE INSULTING, I WAS NOT EVEN CONTACTED TO RESPOND TO THIS "REPORT." I DEMAND AN APOLOGY OR CORRECTION IMMEDIATELY. IF YOU WISH TO VERIFY THIS POST IS FROM ME, I SUGGEST YOU CALL THE CONTACT INFORMATION YOU SO HELPFULLY SUPPLIED AND ASK ME! AUDREY HUDSON THE WASHINGTON TIMES
On her blog, Hudson asserted that Media Matters' item accused Hudson "of getting money for stories (other than my employeer [sic])."
We have no reason to doubt Hudson's statement that she has never been offered or taken money from an outside group to write a story. For the record, Media Matters did not and does not suggest that any specific reporter or columnist, other than Peter Ferrara and Doug Bandow, took money from Abramoff or anyone else. As we wrote in our original item:
We do not know at this point [who else took money for columns]. And that is precisely why full, immediate disclosure -- by those who were paid for writing columns as well as those who paid for them -- is necessary: to help ensure that readers know what interests are behind the opinions they read and to help ensure that honest columnists have their readers' trust. Neither readers nor columnists are well-served by continued secrecy.
IT LOOKS LIKE THE CITIATIONS ON MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA ARE STARTING TO EFFECT THESE HACK JOURNALISTS. I mean, didn't they teach them not to use caps lock at Bob Jones journalism school?
Who would someone write serveral articles about the Interior Department for free, anyway?
I disagree that my ethics were not questioned, but I thank you for clearing this up. I can't imagine any newspaper reporter taking money to write a story from an outside source. I also agree with your call for all columnitsts, reporters, and bloggers for that matter, to reveal whether they have taken money from any lobbyist, not just Jack Abramoff.
‘I HAVE NEVER BEEN OFFERED, NOR WOULD I EVER ACCEPT MONEY OR A BRIBE TO WRITE A STORY, NOT FROM JACK ABRAMOFF, NOT FROM ANYONE. THE INSINUATION IN THIS REPORT THAT I DID IS WRONG AND LIBELOUS.’
The question being as to whether MMFA stated or implied in any way that Ms. Hudson ‘accept[ed] money or a bribe to write a story’, the answer must certainly be found in any reference to Ms. Hudson, or to her writings.
In the item, the name of Audrey Hudson occurs three times, and there is a single occurrence of quotation of Ms. Hudson’s writings. The references, and quotation, all appearing under that part of the item subtitled ‘Conservative news outlets promote otherwise-ignored Stayman story’, in the order in which they appear…
1. [reference] On August 3, 1999, a Washington Times article by Audrey Hudson raised questions about whether Stayman and a subordinate, OIA policy director David North, improperly used government resources for political purposes:
2. [quotation] ‘An Interior Department official told his boss in a secret memo about his covert on-the-job political campaign aimed at unseating House Republican leaders in the 1998 election, according to a document obtained by The Washington Times. In a 1997 memo, David North, policy director for the Office of Insular Affairs, asked the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for information on how to assist Democratic candidates, and sent a copy of the memo to his boss, Allen P. Stayman, then director of Insular Affairs. Mr. North and other federal employees are under investigation by the House Resources Committee for using official equipment and time in an unsuccessful attempt to unseat at least four House Republicans and one GOP senator. Mr. North drafted press releases for Democratic candidates, provided derogatory information about Republican members to campaigns and reporters, and wrote letters to the editor for constituents to submit to local newspapers, investigators say.
3. [reference] Hudson -- who went on to write six more articles for The Washington Times about Stayman and North from August 1999 to July 2000 -- joined the Times in 1999 after serving as spokeswoman for Republican Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO) and Rep. Scott McInnis (R-CO).
4. [reference] Other than Hudson's seven articles, only nine news reports available on Nexis mention the Northern Mariana Islands and the Stayman investigation.
The word ‘money’ appears six times in the item; the word ‘bribe’ appears not at all. Of the six occurrences of the word ‘money’, two appear in the context of quoting an ‘online chat’, which also happens to conclude the item. Those six occurrences of the word ‘money’, in the order they appear…
1. Summary: A review of columns about the Northern Mariana Islands by conservative columnists Doug Bandow and Peter Ferrara, both of whom have admitted to taking money from Jack Abramoff in exchange for op-eds, and of other news reports and columns about the Marianas suggests that Bandow and Ferrara may not have been the only media figures Abramoff paid in exchange for writing about the topic.
2. On August 20, 1999, Ferrara -- who is now known to have taken money from Abramoff for columns helpful to Abramoff's clients -- wrote an op-ed for The Washington Times that attacked Stayman and North and argued against federal government intervention in the Commonwealth.
3. BusinessWeek Online report about Bandow taking money from Abramoff in exchange for writing columns beneficial to Abramoff's clients noted that Bandow had written in praise of the Northern Mariana Islands; the October 9, 2001, column is the only Bandow column available on Nexis that mentions the islands.
4. Given that Abramoff paid Bandow and Ferrara for writing columns in general and that these columns directly mirrored the interests of Abramoff's clients and his strategy to attack Stayman, it seems unlikely that Bandow and Ferrara did not take money from Abramoff for these columns.
…and the ‘online chat’ occurrences;
5. Annapolis, Md.: Do columnists represent lobbyists, and if so, do they take money for it?
6. Howard Kurtz: If you hear of any reporters taking money from lobbyists, please let me know.
Where in any of the three references to Ms. Hudson, or in the quotation of her writings for that matter, is the ‘accept[ing of] money or a bribe to write a story’ stated or implied?
Where in any of the six occurrences of the word ‘money’ (again, there being no occurrence of the word ‘bribe’) is Ms. Hudson’s name mentioned or even implied?
Care to comment as to why you have such an interest in the Mariana Islands, why you did so much reporting about them, why the Washington Times seems to be the only paper that did any reporting about them and the other reporters who did so were paid off? At least they had a reason for such reporting.
What you have NOT done is show exactly how or where your ethics were questioned. Short of doing that your disagreement carries little weight. Cough it up or give it up. I dont see any such challenge.
Media Matters owes this woman an apology.
The implication was clear and spiteful.
If MMFA has any sense of decency, they will at least apologize for the inference.
MMFA can hardly apologize for an inference. Inference refers to the way a reader or hearer interprets a statement. Do you perhaps want MMFA to apolgize for an implication?
Ooooooo..... fake outrage!!
It's what the right does best. Works well with hypocrisy.
As for Hudson and her inability to read, she owes MediaMatters an apology.
Hope you got a screenshot or Google has an archive
Weird.
[link to audreysright.typepad.com]
OVER AND DONE Media Matters has posted a clarification of their article, and I thank them for it. [link to mediamatters.org]
I believe this issue is an object lesson for Ms. Hudson as well as other currently working reporters. If Ms. Hudson asserts that she did not take money for this article, and there are no other credible facts to contradict her, then we should take her at her word.
However, given the current list of journalists that have been accused and in some cases proven to have taken money to write specific pieces (without disclosing their conflict of interest), being paid for stories is not unimaginable.
The object lesson involves doing your job. When a reporter covers a story that has many different sides, their responsibility is to present fairly the different aspects of the story. The MMFA website was created to document how “news” stories are being slated, facts distorted, and infected with outright propaganda. Again and again we see documented examples of reporters printing stories with “facts” that can be easily refuted with a 3 minute check on the Internet. If we assume that journalists, who have a responsibility to keep the public informed in an unbiased manner, are just to plain lazy or incompetent to do their job, they must be held accountable.
To avoid the perception of taking payoffs to write stories, which is currently happening with regularity, reporters and journalists should make it a point to do their homework, investigate all sides of a story, and print the truth.
"IN MY ENTIRE CAREER AS A REPORTER, I HAVE NEVER BEEN OFFERED, NOR WOULD I EVER ACCEPT MONEY OR A BRIBE TO WRITE A STORY, NOT FROM JACK ABRAMOFF, NOT FROM ANYONE."
Not even Reverend Sun Yung Moon?
But seriously, when the original item was posted, I figured that none of the Washington Times people had been bribed by Abramoff. Why would Abramoff bother? Authoring positive articles about corrupt right wingers is part of their job description.
I know the political blogosphere may be different, but over at livejournal deleted entries generally mean that you got caught wanking in public and are embarassed about it.
Ms Hudson just got caught shouting.
... mmfa even "implied" that she had taken money. the dec 21 post was going after two other people and just used her to back up the point of the post.
You expect her to understand subtlety? Come on, she writes for the Washington Times, run by a lunatic who thinks he's better than Jesus.
I wonder why the religious fundies like Robertson and Dobson don't get on Moon's case for claiming he's the Messiah. Could it be the large amounts of money he gives them? What's religious doctrine and the status of one's soul compared to huge bags of cash? War on Christmas? We'd all be forced to celebrate Moonmas if the Times' owner had his way.
Ms. Hudson has followed the typical right wing tactic of misrepresenting the words of opponents or critics, then beating them up for the distortion.
GUILTY!
Audrey Hudson is a quality reporter. Think what you will about the Times, Audery is a sharp, honorable and decent soul with a sharp news sense and a real sense of decency. I used to work with Audrey at the Washington Times - it should be significant that I could myself as a FORMER Times employee but not a FORMER friend and colleague of Audrey. She's a good journalist and a good person. So what is she guilty of in this case? Being the target of strategic leaks from people interested in this issue? Perhaps - it happens all the time in DC. Is she guilty of being a little sensitive to any suggestion that she was doing something improper in reporting on the issue? Sure - why not? I don't blame her for writing the stories she did. I don't blame her for being alarmed at seing her name associated with this sordid Abramoff stuff. Give her a break, ok? Whether you like the Times or not doesn't matter - Audrey works hard for a living, she's trying to do the right thing as best she can. Save the vitriol for hacks like Abramoff and his corrupt buddies.
she dost protest to much.