Salon Comes Clean--Not

Salon yesterday had a story entitled "Pundits for Money." My first reaction on seeing that was, "Aha! Salon is finally going to come clean about its use of the admitted Payola Pundit, Ian Williams!"

Williams, of course, is the fourth-rate hack who covers the United Nations for The Nation, even though he has worked for the UN in the past and still uses his UN work in advertising for business. The Nation has made a feeble attempt to disclose this brazen conflict of interest, but Salon runs Williams' retchings without disclosing his work for the UN, which violates the most fundamental principles of journalism ethics. You don't take money from the people you write about. Period.

As described in a previous item, Williams' peccadilloes are just one example of rampant ethical anorexia at the UN press corps, as revealed by Accuracy in Media and FrontPage Magazine.

Alas, Salon has yet to come clean. Its piece yesterday was on the Times charging readers for online access to its columnists. That rather trivial form of "Pundits for Money" has Salon in a tizzy, but not using a "correspondent" who takes money from the UN while shilling for the East River Debating Society in his writings. Go figure.