The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal

[NVMojo]

From PRWatch:

Armstrong Williams, Conservative pundit has been under fire recently following revelations that he was paid $240,000 to promote the Bush administration's "No Child Left Behind" law. However, it isn't the first time that his media interests have been used as a mouthpiece for hidden interests.

Internal tobacco industry documents reveal that in 1996 Williams allowed his nationally syndicated radio program, The Right Side, to be guest hosted by Malcolm Wallop, the chairman of Frontiers of Freedom (FoF), a front group partly funded by tobacco companies.

Wallop proceeded to spend one third of the three-hour program as a platform to criticise a Food and Drug Administration rule aimed at restricting tobacco industry marketing aimed at youth, calling the rule an "abridgement of First Amendment rights."

In 1995 Williams Washington D.C. local talk radio program was syndicated to 60 stations around the country via the Talk America Radio Network.

Wallop, who retired as a Republican Senator from Wyoming in January 1995, founded Frontiers of Freedom immediately afterwards. In September 1995 he wrote to the Chairman and CEO of Philip Morris, Geoffrey Bible, notifying Bible that he would be "guest hosting the nationally syndicated" Armstrong Williams Show in October that year.

http://www.prwatch.org/node/3185