The CEO and editor of USA Weekend, Marcia Bullard, said she had the final word on whether to cooperate with the drug czar. "I didn't stand in the way," Bullard said. "I had a rudimentary understanding of it." But Bullard added that "in retrospect, I don't think it should be done. It treads too closely to a conflict of interest ... If that [ONDCP] contract exists, it can raise questions in readers' minds if editorial is creditable or produced by advertising. It all gets to be very murky." Bullard said that "very few things in life are black and white," but added, "There should be a clear separation between what's being paid for and what's not. It's a publisher's duty to keep things separate for the readers. This muddies the waters."

In perhaps the most unusual example of the quid pro quo arrangement between publications and the ONDCP, the sales staff at USA Weekend (which is owned by Gannett Co.) submitted paragraphs culled from four different articles in an attempt to cobble together enough government-endorsed column inches to physically add up to one full page, said Gannett account executive Lisa Helbraun. Helbraun told Salon, "We're waiting for approval. We haven't gotten a valuation as of yet. But their initial reaction is we'll probably have to submit more."

Helbraun said that the drug-control office wanted editorial content on parents talking to their kids about drugs. "We've done alcohol and tobacco [articles], but that doesn't count. It has to be strictly drugs."

USA Weekend's anti-drug material could be acceptably embedded, though, in a story with a different focus. Helbraun said a paragraph on drugs could be snipped from a story on the dangers of drunken driving, for example. "Different paragraphs from different stories -- they measure the paragraphs just as long as somehow, some way they're hitting home on this topic" of parents talking to their kids about drugs.

Negotiations apparently continue on how Gannett will fulfill the government's requirement for a match -- in addition to the bonus advertising it has already provided. Helbraun said, "If they want more, we'll have to talk to editorial and see if they're planning more [anti-drug] stories." Then, "see if they [the articles] work."

Helbraun believes the arrangement does not interfere with the magazine's editorial independence, saying that editors maintain their prerogative to run whatever they want. But, speaking generally, she acknowledged that it's not unheard of for editorial material to be indirectly influenced by big clients, such as food companies that buy large blocks of space. In a similar vein, the editors might decide that another anti-drug article "could be a possibility," Helbraun stated.

The Sporting News, the 114-year-old, 550,000-circulation newsprint weekly owned by Times Mirror (though Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen recently announced his intention to buy it), received $414,000 from the drug office in 1999. Its editor, John D. Rawlings, said he "was told that Gen. McCaffrey was going to use the magazine" to disseminate an anti-drug message. Referring to publisher Francis X. Farrell, Rawlings added, "Fran and I talked about doing anti-drug columns."

Farrell said, "I send John [Rawlings] notes saying I admire what the drug-control office has done" and suggesting more features of an appropriate nature. The magazine published about half a dozen "appropriate" features, all one-pagers, in 1999, Rawlings said.

In fact, ONDCP even helped pick the writer for two of the anti-drug articles. According to Richard Lapchick, director of the Northeastern University Center for the Study of Sport in Society, he had already severed a longstanding relationship with the Sporting News in favor of writing for another sports publication. But then he heard from Rawlings that ONDCP had "asked for me specifically."

When asked whether he was aware that a financial value was being placed on anti-drug articles, Rawlings said that it was "not a factor in my [editorial] decisions," and "I know only what I've read about television" (i.e., Salon's earlier report). He added that he and publisher Farrell "didn't talk details" about the matter.

Farrell said the deal did not represent a financial quid pro quo. Told of Ogilvy executive Vietri's quote that an article in his magazine "counted as a match," Farrell says, "I never viewed it that way."

Times Mirror Magazines Chairman and CEO Efrem Zimbalist III, in a written statement, said, "We stand by the integrity of the editorial product of the Sporting News and the decisions of the editor, John Rawlings." He declined to be interviewed.

Politics 2000: Unflinching daily political news, analysis and commentary.