The Armstrong Williams fiasco has drawn important attention to inappropriate government payments to journalists. But Bruce Bartlett notes that very little has been said about reporters, anchors and commentators who routinely accept massive corporate speaking fees:

[M]ainstream journalists who routinely speak before corporations, trade associations and interest groups hoping to influence news coverage practice the greatest double standard. Virtually every major television anchor is listed with one or more speakers’ bureaus, which charge tens of thousands of dollars per appearance. But of course, this also gives business executives plenty of opportunity to explain why their industry or their products are really good for the American people.

In other cases, journalists work for the very businesses they report on. Howard Kurtz, The Washington Post’s media reporter, has a show on CNN. Critics like Slate’s Mickey Kaus have charged that this consistently causes Mr. Kurtz to underplay negative news relating to CNN.

Yet journalists are still quick to assume every politician who takes a $1,000 campaign contribution from a lobbyist has been bought, while self-righteously proclaiming that $100,000 speaking fees cannot buy them. At least the officials have to disclose it, while no one knows how much the journalists make or whom they have been bought by ” sorry, I mean by whom they were paid to speak. If what the journalists are doing is justifiable, why don’t they give government officials the same consideration? The answer is pure hypocrisy, nothing more.

This is not meant as a defense of conservative columnists who got government contracts. They should have enough sense to know there is a double standard and avoid the appearance of impropriety. But mainstream journalists, in effect selling themselves to the biggest corporate bidder, are a much greater scandal that will be ignored because so many are on the take.

Unlike Williams, these journalists generally don’t promise to promote a point of view in return for money, but that doesn’t mean they should escape scrutiny.