No PR Flack Left Behind
There's no accountability in the for-government PR business. PR firms refuse to share any information that isn't publicly available about what they did with the money. Armstrong Williams' $240,000 to promote "No Child Left Behind," is just the tip of the iceberg, writes Diane Farsetta. In a recent House Committee on Government Reform investigation, Ketchum, the firm that hired Williams, was the largest recipient of recent government PR spending:

Ketchum has received a whopping $100.5 million in federal contracts since 1997. These deals included work for the Education Department; Internal Revenue Service; U.S. Army, to “reconnect the Army with the American people” and boost recruiting around its 225th birthday; and the Health and Human Services Department, to “change the face of Medicare,” promote long-term health care planning, encourage preventative care, and present home care information.

Large increases in Ketchum’s federal work since 2003 mirror the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ PR spending boost, suggesting that their Medicare work may be more extensive than is currently known.

Apart from the scandal surrounding Armstrong Williams, the firm also produced a controversial VNR for the Education Department that promoted tutoring programs under “No Child Left Behind,” and included then-Education Secretary Rod Paige and PR flack Karen Ryan, who misrepresented herself as a reporter.

Ketchum representatives did not return repeated phone calls – making them among the least responsive of the firms contacted by PR Watch.