Republican Governor
Mitt Romney follows White House lead and pays op-ed writer to promote this policies.
Governor Mitt Romney's administration has awarded a $10,000 contract to a Boston Herald op-ed columnist to promote the governor's environmental policies.
The columnist, Charles D. Chieppo, started working yesterday with the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs.
His job calls for writing op-ed pieces and internal documents ''to support the efforts of senior management to promote education, awareness, and acceptance of major policy initiatives" on the environment.
Chieppo will work two days a week until at least June 30. He also plans to continue writing op-ed columns for the Herald, where he is paid for each article.
There were more than one person bidding for the payola contract, these people have no shame.
Chieppo was awarded the contract over another bidder when his Herald columns were highly supportive of Romney's policies. His March 21 column, which appeared three days after Chieppo submitted his bid for the state contract, praised the Romney mass-transit plan that was largely authored by Douglas Foy, the secretary of Commonwealth development and the person who oversees the Environmental Affairs office that now employs Chieppo.
Bob Zelnick, who chairs Boston University's journalism department, said in an interview yesterday that the Chieppo contract raised ethical questions.
At least, Mitt Romney believes in the "free market" rather than White House giving contracts without any competition.
Bush, Delay now Romney, GOP has become the ethically challenge Republican party.
''I think it is inappropriate, bordering on improper, for a person to be writing a column one day and consulting actively in a paid position for the administration the same day or even the next day," Zelnick said. ''I think that blurs the lines between legitimate journalism and politics [in a way] that serves neither the administration nor the public and certainly not the newspaper."
The Boston Herald will continue the services of Charles D. Chieppo.
Gwen Gage, a spokeswoman for the Boston Herald, said that Chieppo has disclosed his new state contract to the paper's editorial page editor, Rachelle Cohen, who decided to allow him to continue writing his weekly column as long as he refrains from writing about ''those topics he's consulting on."
''We have an agreement that he'll stay clear of that stuff," Gage said.
It's not unusual for reporters to move to government jobs and sometimes back into journalism. In the past month, Herald political reporter David Guarino left the paper to become communications director for Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly.
But Zelnick said that situation is different from being paid by the government while remaining a paid op-ed writer.
This is wide spread, who is going to be next on the pay roll of the government?