On Jan. 26 media reporter Howard Kurtz wrote that the Department of Health and Human Services paid me "to help promote the president's proposal."
In the aftermath of the Armstrong Williams story, this choice of phrase has a particular meaning reflected in the flood of media coverage since. This is a serious charge. It is also false.
The Bush administration did not pay me as a journalist to promote President Bush's marriage proposal. In 2002 I was paid for six pieces of work for the Department of Health and Human Services related to my field of expertise: four brochures on social science evidence and marriage; a draft of an essay for Wade Horn; and a presentation for regional HHS managers on the benefits of marriage.
It is not uncommon or unethical for experts to be paid by the government for work in their field of expertise.
Until today, researchers and scholars have not generally been expected to disclose a government-funded research project in the past, when they later wrote about their field of expertise in the popular press or in scholarly journals.
For these reasons, it never occurred to me that I needed to disclose this information. I had no intention or motive to hide my work from anyone. It was simply a mistake, which I have acknowledged.
Whether Mr. Kurtz and The Post acknowledge it, it is the charge that I took money to promote the administration's agenda and not the question of disclosure that is feeding the media coverage.
MAGGIE GALLAGHER
Ossining, N.Y.
