Even after Armstrong Williams affair, Morning News on federal op-ed payola

The Dallas Morning News has reportedly been taking Department of Education payola money for some of its op-eds.

Here's the detailed word from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee:

The Department of Education has paid education advocacy groups to produce newspaper opinion pieces, advertisements, and other public materials that reached audiences all over the country without revealing that the government paid for their production and distribution, according to a report issued late last week by the Department’s Inspector General that concluded that such practices were improper.

Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, requested the report in January. Miller said the report raises two key concerns: first, that it describes the consistent use of covert propaganda by the Department of Education over a period of years; and second, that it shows a disturbing pattern of neglect on the part of the Department when it comes to properly overseeing its grants and contracts.
For example, opinion articles appearing in an untold number of newspapers all over the country were written and placed by authors paid by the federal government who failed to disclose this relationship in their columns. These writers offered opinions – sometimes strident ones – about controversial areas of federal education policy.

The IG report names the Dallas Morning News, Sacramento Bee, Mobile Register, Grand Island (NE) Independent, Al Dia, (the News' Spanish-language publication) and En USA as publications that published government-funded op-eds whose authors failed to disclose the government’s financial sponsorship. Separately, Miller’s office also determined that additional opinion articles ran in the New York Sun and the Charleston Gazette. …

The Inspector General did conclude that it was improper for organizations to use Department of Education grant money to produce and disseminate public materials without including a disclaimer about funding, and said that the appropriate course of action is to recover grant monies paid to the organizations.

I have e-mailed Keven Ann Willey, the News' editorial page editor, and senior news management at the News, to find out what if any comment they will have. I'll post that when I get it.