Feeling a bit snarky Friday night, after reading Josh on TPM, I decided to try to catch a ride on the Ketchum payola gravy train myself.
So, I clicked over to Ketchum's website, got to their Agency Leaders webpage, and got the e-mail addresses of CEO Raymond Kotcher and the rest of the gang, and dropped them a note.
As Josh Marshall has pointed out on his blog, Talking Points Memo:
"Everyone has quickly and rightly connected the Armstrong Williams story to earlier instances where the administration used government funds to produce pro-Bush political propaganda. There were the phony news segments produced for the Department of Education to push the No Child Left Behind Act, similar phony news segments produced for HHS to push the new Medicare law, and the Department of Education ratings system devised to rate how different news outlets ranked on No Child Left Behind act orthodoxy and the Republican party's commitment to education.
"But there's something else that links all these instances together. They were all contracted through one PR firm: Ketchum."
I am the editor of a suburban Dallas weekly newspaper, in the heart of Red State territory. How can I get some Presidential money to help spread the word about Bush's policies in his second term?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_01_02.php#004365
Sincerely,
Steve Snyder