RALEIGH – Armstrong Williams is definitely not on the right side.

Well, the conservative commentator is on the Right side, ideologically. And he is on “The Right Side,” produced for both radio and television. But Williams, a former aide to Clarence Thomas and Strom Thurmond, is not on the right side of the ethical line. He blundered badly when he accepted $240,000 in tax money from the U.S. Department of Education to promote the Bush administration’s “No Child Left Behind” policy to black families via his media appearances.

The deal, which USA Today exposed on Friday after using the Freedom of Information Act to jar loose the requisite documents, obligated Williams to mention the act frequently on his broadcasts and periodically to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige. He also sought to persuade other black journalists to promote No Child Left Behind, a cause that Williams told the newspaper he wanted to tout because “it’s something I believe in.”

That may be true, but it is also true that Armstrong Williams was being paid – with our tax money – to espouse the view. Given his various positions, it was unethical for him to solicit or accept such compensation, and it was at least unwise and counterproductive if not illegal for the federal government to offer it.

Let’s break down the ethical and legal questions. First, one might question the ethics charge, arguing that it is not inherently wrong for someone in public life to accept payment from an interested party for espousing a view that one previously and honestly holds. I agree, but context matters. Ethical rules are often about drawing lines, about keeping one’s duties and actions in their correct, separate boxes. There should be clear boundaries between public relations and lobbying on the one hand and opinion journalism on the other. The distinction should be similar to that of movie publicist and movie critic, or salesman and consumer reporter.

In those cases, how is the distinction maintained? By tools such as disclosure, clear lines of independent authority and accountability, and financial diversification. While critics might work for newspapers or magazines that derive significant advertising revenues from Hollywood or from manufacturers of products they review, the likelihood that monetary concerns will influence their judgment and credibility is lessened by the fact that their compensation is at least formally unrelated to the preferences or economic successes of particular advertisers. Does some corruption occur in such situations anyway? Yes. Reality is messy and human beings are prone to temptation. But by insisting on ethical boundaries, we reduce corruption and increase public confidence in what they are reading, hearing, and seeing (the latter helping to explain why it is in the long-term self-interest of industries to develop and respect ethical codes in the face of short-term temptations to do otherwise).

In the case of a broadcast commentator or newspaper writer (Williams has been a syndicated columnist with Tribune Media Services), the absence of an ethical bar to direct, undisclosed compensation by an interested party would subject the pundit to severe credibility problems. Audience members might reasonably question whether the pundit’s opinion is being honestly expressed or is simply reflects the view of the highest bidder. What’s worse, they might reasonably question the credibility of other broadcasters or columnists working for the same media organization, as unfair or debilitating as that may be. As Tribune Media put it when announcing that Williams’ column would be discontinued, “Accepting compensation in any form from an entity that serves as a subject of his weekly newspaper columns creates, at the very least, the appearance of a conflict of interest,” prompting readers to ask whether his opinions “have been purchased by a third party.”

There can be a reasonable exception to this rule, particularly given the part-time nature of many individuals’ participation in the news and opinion media. If you have in the past had a financial relationship (or a personal one, obviously) with some individual or institution but find it impossible not to comment on an issue or controversy having to do with the individual or institution, you need to disclose the relationship before offering your opinion. The audience can decide whether to discount your opinion accordingly, but at least they won’t discover the information later and come to the conclusion that you’ve tried to put something over on them.

Now, for all my talk about ethical boxes and clear dividing lines, I also admit that today’s media universe features some difficult-to-categorize hybrids. They include university professors who conduct research for clients while also offering their informed opinions to politicians or the media, and, closer to home, the role of the public-policy think tank. Consider the John Locke Foundation as a case study. I head up a private, nonprofit think tank that pays its bills by asking individuals, corporations, and philanthropic foundations to support us if they believe in our work. While most of our resulting revenue comes from those who either value the role of public policy debate in general or share our specific philosophy of government – that it should be limited, economical, innovative, open, and respectful of personal freedom and responsibility – others likely support our work because they believe it is consistent with their own interests or those of their industry.

So when JLF conducts research or holds a policy forum, when its analysts testify before committees or offer opinions to the news media – or, more to the point, when I write my syndicated column or opine on “N.C. Spin” or “Carolina Journal Radio” – are we subject to the same potential credibility problem? It would be easy to respond with, “of course not, because everyone knows my opinions are heart-felt and can’t be bought.” But that is an insufficient response. Multiply this situation by the large and increasing number of public policy institutes, of all ideological persuasions, in Washington and the various states, and you have the potential for lots of ethical quandaries.

I don’t think the proper corrective would be for the advertiser-driven news media to avoid using think tankers as commentators. That would impoverish the public debate. A better remedy is the one that JLF and most other such groups have already adopted: articulate a set of ethical rules.

First, we state clearly our organizing principles and methods of analysis so there is no pretense about where we are coming from. Second, we make clear that all opinions expressed by our staffers, adjuncts, and contributing writers are their own views, not necessarily those of JLF (one reason for this is that, even coming at public policy issues from a set of shared basic principles, JLF folks end up disagreeing quite a bit about specific conclusions and applications). Third, we are as open as possible about our sources, analyses, computations, and reasoning. This reduces the cost for sparring partners and other outsiders to check our premises or facts, improving public accountability. Fourth, we maintain a strict policy about the relationship between donors and JLF. Whether receiving unrestricted grants or funds restricted to a particular program or project, we reserve the right to draw our own conclusions from our work – to write, publish, broadcast, or otherwise disseminate precisely what we wish without any donor having the right, or even the opportunity, to have anything to say about it.

Of course, if donors don’t like our conclusions or utterances, they can post facto choose not to support us anymore. Could some policy institutes become so spooked by the possibility of shrinking budgets that they start doctoring data or tailoring their views? Yes, just as newspapers are sometimes accused of playing favorites or burying stories to placate advertisers, or scientists are sometimes accused of falsifying data or hiding unfavorable research results to placate industry sponsors. Corruption cannot be abolished by ethical rules, but it can be constrained and exposed.

(By the way, most sensible donors understand that such rules are actually in their long-term interest, as well, because an organization whose opinions can be purchased by donors is an organization whose opinions won’t be valued much by policymakers or the general public, and thus isn’t really worth supporting in the first place even if the opinions end up being consonant with the donors’).

I should add that disclosure is by itself an effective remedy for many kinds of real or potential conflicts. A recent article from The Wall Street Journal discussed the practice of businesses or trade associations paying professors or other opinion leaders a fee to sign their name on op-eds drafted by the funder, or otherwise to use their position and reputation to aid a lobbying effort without being clearly identified as a compensated spokesman. If the practice was clearly disclosed, it would be less damaging and pervasive (because newspaper editors would be likely to reject op-eds they knew were mass-produced by paid flacks and then decorated with professors’ names, for example).

There is another serious ethical problem with what Williams did: he accepted tax money to engage in public-policy advocacy. I think this should be unconscionable for any commentator or independent public-policy group. Corporations, foundations, and trade associations may have strong financial interests to advance, but at least the funds they use to do so are entrusted to them voluntarily (directly or through contracted agents).

On the other hand, governments are funded coercively. This places an ethical burden both on public officials, to spend those dollars only for legitimate public purposes, and on potential recipients, to avoid using such dollars directly or indirectly to advance political arguments. Thomas Jefferson was right when he wrote that “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

An irony is that such misuse of tax money, while evident across the spectrum, is a more serious problem on the Left. Millions of tax dollars flow to organizations that take strong, often strident positions on political issues or even electoral campaigns. Examples would include labor unions, environmental groups, research and advocacy programs at public universities, Planned Parenthood, and groups that lobby for housing subsidies or against bank mergers. While sometimes government grants are earmarked for functions other than political advocacy or lobbying, money is fungible. The dollars often serve to cover the overhead costs and free up private donations, otherwise needed for service delivery, which can be transferred to political purposes, including campaign contributions and independent expenditures.

I think the proper remedy for the coerced-speech problem is, again, to draw the lines as bright and thick as possible. No direct grants of tax dollars should ever be made to organizations engaged in politics, lobbying, or advocacy. On the recipient side, such organizations should maintain firm rules against receiving government grants (JLF has such a rule written into its by-laws).

Finally, there is the issue of legality. The arrangement between the Education Department and Williams could be unethical, on both sides, without being illegal. Laws should govern cases in which your actions might violate the rights of others. Ethical rules govern a much broader universe of cases in which your actions might impose harms, on yourself or those with whom you are engaged, even if fundamental rights to life, liberty, and property are not abrogated.

Some Democrats on Capitol Hill, however, argue that the deal may indeed violate a law that supposedly forbids “propaganda” from being subsidized with tax dollars. I wish that such a clear legal stricture did exist, but I’m not convinced that it does – or, to put it another way, no one seems to have been enforcing it until now. I think I’ll reserve judgment on that part of the dispute.

It’s not really the central problem, it seems to me. The central problem concerns ethics and precedents. I don’t believe that Armstrong Williams would have opposed No Child Left Behind if he hadn’t been paid to say otherwise. This is not a case of bribery, though some have carelessly thrown the term around. But it may well be a case of payola – that is, of placing a higher priority on something because of compensation, much like disk jockeys were known to pick some songs over others because of under-the-table dollars. The songs being played may well have been good ones, but the process was unethical and ultimately harmful to the profession. Similarly, whatever salutary motives Williams and Page’s Education Department may have shared, their poor choices have had serious, adverse ethical and political consequences.

Obviously, they didn’t foresee those consequences. Moral and ethical rules exist precisely because we are flawed and shortsighted creatures who often find it difficult to predict the long-term consequences of our immediate actions. Rather than trying to work out all the potential costs and benefits of each decision, which is problematic and costly in time and resources, we rely on general principles and rules that are time-tested and broadly understood. Heeding them, there will still be a fair amount of stumbling around, inevitably, but it will occur within the guardrails and thus keep us from falling off the ethical cliff.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.