Grading the News--at Your Expense : Investigation of reporters and sources ordered by the Energy Dept. is a misuse of tax money

A public official having an unhappy relationship with the media is nothing new, but Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary appears to have gone over the line in dealing with the problem. She spent $43,000 in taxpayer money to investigate reporters and media outlets covering the Energy Department. This is clearly unacceptable. The sentiment is the same at the White House, which on Thursday asked O’Leary for a full accounting. If the secretary was looking for a way to improve her image, this was not it.

O’Leary has been in hot water before. Earlier this year there were critical reports in the media that said her travel expenses were among the highest in the Clinton Cabinet. All this indicates a lack of judgment on the secretary’s part that threatens to overshadow her substantial achievements, which include ordering the report that documented three decades of ethical violations by government agencies that performed radiation experiments on unwitting Americans.

The latest O’Leary gaffe was reported Thursday by the Wall Street Journal. Apparently upset with press coverage of the energy secretary and the department, the DOE hired a Washington firm to investigate various reporters and assess their reports, sources and publications. Carma International looked at more than two dozen reporters and hundreds of newspaper, magazine and television reports from December, 1994, through last August. It compiled favorability rankings not only on reporters but on their sources and news organizations. The company determined whether the DOE was portrayed positively or negatively on issues ranging from O’Leary’s reputation to nuclear waste.

A low rating “meant that we weren’t getting our message across, that we needed to work on this person a little,” Energy Department spokeswoman Barbara Semedo told the Wall Street Journal.

Traveling in Baton Rouge, La., O’Leary said she had asked not for an evaluation of reporters but rather for an analysis of news coverage, which, she said, would have cost $170,000--not $80,000, as Semedo said--if done in-house.

O’Leary told the White House that the project was portrayed incorrectly in the media on Thursday.

Spending tax money to probe the the media was overzealous and a misappropriation of public funds. Unless O’Leary can come up promptly with some satisfactory justification, her credibility with the American press and people surely will be diminished.