EDITORS MADE DEALS ON ANTIDRUG ARTICLES

Magazines Ran Items To Get Government Ads

The White House has spent more than $1-billion (U.S.) in a five-year
propaganda and advertising effort to make its tough war-on-drugs policies
palatable - and part of that money appears to be paying for articles
inserted in major magazines available on Canadian newsstands.

Two months after major U.S. TV networks admitted they wrote prime-time
scripts supporting antidrug policies in exchange for government advertising
deals, documents show that editors of major magazines such as Seventeen and
Family Circle have produced articles approved by the White House to attract
similar advertising contracts.

According to articles published yesterday in Rolling Stone and in the online
magazine Salon.com, at least six major magazines admitted to submitting
articles and columns to the White House for consideration as paid antidrug
messages.

If an article was approved by White House staff, the magazine would profit
in two ways: The article would count as a public-service ad, freeing the
magazine from having to print cut-rate government ads on valuable page
space; and the article would qualify the magazine as an editorial voice
suitable to the government program, thus qualifying it for millions in
future government antidrug ads.

Magazines that submitted articles for consideration include Seventeen,
Family Circle, US News & World Report, Sporting News, plus two
large-circulation weeklies inserted in Sundays newspapers across the United
States, Parade, and USA Weekend.

In 1997, the White House spent $1-billion on antidrug messages as part of
its controversial War on Drugs. Publications and TV stations were expected
to charge half their normal rates for the ads. When some complained they
were giving up valuable pages and airtime for half-price ads, the White
House began allowing them to submit non-advertising material, including
fiction and journalism, for consideration as advertising.

While the editors-in-chief all denied that the government program had
influenced them to print any particular articles, in several instances it is
apparent the program influenced editorial direction.

In January, for example, Seventeen magazine ran a melodramatic cautionary
article about a 17-year-old girl in prison for minor drug offences; the
magazine's ad saleswoman, Jackie O'Hare, boasted that the magazine was given
at least $70,000 in government ad credits for featuring that article on its
Web site for a month, even though Seventeen does not usually run printed
articles on the Web.

"There's another antidrug feature in May or June; I'm sure [the White House]
will be happy about that."

In the case of Sporting News, White House drug guru General Barry McCaffrey
reportedly told the publisher that he wanted a specific columnist, Richard
Lapchich, to pen column carrying government-approved messages in exchange
for advertising credits.

Parade magazine actually ran a highly flattering cover profile of Gen.
McCaffrey, though it is unclear whether it was one of the articles for which
the magazine was given advertising credits.

The program is far from secret; in fact, last week the White House
drug-control office issued a press release describing the program and
boasting that "never before has such an enormous amount of free media time
and space been successfully negotiated and implemented."

The drug office announced last week it would spend $2.1- million in May
issues of magazines, a campaign it described as a "roadblock," because it
places messages in front of target readers wherever they look. At a time
when drugs play a complex role in North American society, the office's
messages carry a puritanical tone, warning that even the slightest drug use
could result in serious peril, and urging parents to monitor their
children's behaviour closely at all times.

Canadian government grants to magazines are frequently tied to demands for
specific forms of editorial content. But U.S. media have generally kept a
distance from such government messages.

Journalistic-ethics specialists expressed alarm at the program yesterday, as
did many of the ditors and writers who learned that their magazines had been
involved in the program without their knowledge.

However, business officials at the magazines seemed unfazed by the
publicity.