Those magazines whose articles have been deemed by the drug czar's office as "on-message" have qualified for the credits, which are awarded in lieu of advertising obligations. Those that failed the test have not.

The drug-control office has made some of the most lucrative ad buys from magazines that maintain an anti-drug editorial environment that it considers hospitable to its messages.

The ONDCP, which is overseen by Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, an officer in President Clinton's Cabinet, did not review the articles before they were published. But the office did allow the six magazines -- U.S. News & World Report, Sporting News, Family Circle, Seventeen, Parade and USA Weekend -- to submit their editorial content to qualify as a substitute for advertising pages owed the government under single-year advertising contracts. Executives at all six magazines have confirmed the relationship with the drug office in interviews with Salon. The ONDCP refused to comment on this and all other matters. (The office demanded that questions be faxed to it, which Salon refused to do.)

The editors of the six publications denied that their content or editorial decisions were affected by the relationship with the White House drug office -- although some of the articles were apparently planned and assigned out of a desire to help spread the ONDCP's anti-drug message. Several of the editors denied any knowledge of the relationship, while others claimed to have only a partial awareness of it.

Given their ignorance and the fact that the articles weren't vetted before publication, several editors said, there was nothing unseemly about trading them for the ad credits. It was unclear whether, now that they knew about it, the editors would continue to engage in the practice.

Some industry insiders defended their colleagues' decisions to take part in the program. Jacqueline Leo, president of the American Society of Magazine Editors and former editor of Family Circle, said, "Given all the things editors can be pressured about, this doesn't ring my chimes. This one is at least not completely toxic. If U.S. News is trying to get credit to meet their numbers, I can't fault them for that. To say you don't owe [ONDCP] a half a page, I'd do that." Retroactive valuation is especially not a problem, says Leo, because "it means nothing if you take preexisting features and say, 'Here, give me credit.'"

Other commentators, however, were less sanguine.

Tom Goldstein, dean of the Columbia University School of Journalism, said, "It strikes me as highly dubious. Editors should edit and the sales side should sell. Sure, I'm concerned. The way you describe it, it seems the editorial function has been compromised." He added, "There shouldn't be arrangements that are hidden from readers."

Lewis Lapham, the editor of Harper's, expressed no great shock: "The only surprise here is it hasn't happened sooner. Most consumer magazines a long time ago turned themselves into delivery systems for advertisers."

One of the writers whose story was submitted to the White House drug office for valuation stated, "This is a clear violation of journalistic ethics. It's really egregious."

"This shapes the type of reporting you're doing and what editors are asking for," continued the journalist, who requested anonymity. "If we ever did something like this as a writer -- showed a story to a source ahead of publication, say -- our career would be finished."

What is indisputable is that the U.S. government is using taxpayer money to, in effect, reward publications whose editorial content matches the government's views on drug control.

A number of Time Warner publications also participated, including Sports Illustrated ($1,385,000); Time ($1,344,000); People ($743,000); People En Español ($160,000); Life ($111,000); and Family Life ($74,000). To date, Salon has obtained no evidence that any of these publications sought to swap editorial content for drug-czar financial credits.

Overall, the drug office's five-year, roughly billion-dollar ad buy enriched a wide range of media. Television, both local and network, got well over $80 million in fiscal year 1999; radio got more than $10 million; billboards, transit and the like got over $5 million, and in-school efforts got a similar amount. Print, both newspapers and magazines, received some $17 million, with about $10 million of that going to magazines, as detailed above.

The manner in which the ONDCP works with magazines is similar to its relationship with the major television networks, which was revealed in Salon earlier this year. When Congress appropriated nearly $1 billion for the anti-drug program in late 1997, it added the stipulation that the drug-control office get all of its advertising at a 50 percent discount.

Specifically, Congress required any media outlet selling advertising to the drug-control office to either give the office one free (that is, "bonus" ad) for each paid ad or trade some other form of ONDCP-approved content for its obligation.

Salon's earlier investigation detailed how the five major TV networks, which rushed to get a piece of the ad buy but then resisted having to sell their increasingly valuable airtime at half-price, were eventually able to cut deals with the drug-control office to substitute programming for some of the extra ads. In certain cases, the drug czar's office was allowed to review scripts and suggest changes before a show was broadcast. In some cases, the networks inserted government-approved anti-drug messages into TV sitcoms and dramas in order to satisfy their obligations to their government "client."

By following the guidelines set by the ONDCP, which is primarily a law-enforcement agency, the networks freed up nearly $22 million worth of advertising time that they could then sell for even more money, given the current red-hot TV ad market.

As for magazines, the drug-control office sent formal instructions called "Strategy Platforms" to publishers detailing its wishes for editorial content. It distributed formal, printed instructions on what sort of articles to run in which months. In at least one case, that of USA Weekend, the ONDCP made it clear to a magazine that it wanted a certain type of anti-drug story to be published. In another case, it actually picked the writer for a story that appeared in the Sporting News.

Magazine executives interviewed by Salon explained how the arrangement worked. The drug-control office would buy a specific amount of advertising in individual magazines. Under Congress' mandate, each publisher then owed the drug-control office advertising of an equal value. But magazines were allowed, if they chose, to submit editorial features to be "valued" in lieu of the extra ads owed the White House.

The drug office has employed two well-known ad agencies, Bates USA and subsequently Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, for the print-media campaign. Rich Vietri, currently a senior partner at O&M, has helped manage the magazine component for both agencies. He stated last year that editorial content is one way to meet the drug-control office's stipulation for a second ad. "With magazines, we get a one-for-one dollar match," he said, adding, "Straight news wouldn't be the match, but features would be -- stories that they might run already as a matter of course."

Vietri noted that an article in the May 24, 1999, issue of the Sporting News "counted as a match." In addition, according to Vietri, two articles in Parade counted, as did at least one in Family Circle. Last year, Vietri said he was anticipating a meeting with Gregory G. Coleman -- Reader's Digest's president of U.S. magazines, but in this instance representing the Magazine Publishers Association -- to discuss "not just running [ad] space, but featuring editorial material across a variety of titles. It's an industrywide initiative ... over a broad dispersion of magazines."

Salon's investigation has documented six magazines that have cooperated with the drug czar under this matching program.

At U.S. News & World Report, which is owned by real-estate magnate Mortimer Zuckerman and has a weekly circulation of 2,205,000, the drug office bought a total of $652,000 in ads last year. (All ONDCP ad-buy figures are from Competitive Media Reporting, an ad-tracking service.) Under the rules established by Congress, therefore, the drug-control office was "owed" an equal amount of free ad inventory by the magazine. Rather than incur the costs for this much valuable real estate, however, the magazine submitted several of its feature stories with anti-drug themes to the drug czar.

U.S. News publisher Bill Holiber explained his reasoning for this relationship to Salon: "If we luck out over the course of a year, our editorial fulfills [the obligation]. If not, we offset with ad pages." Holiber said that Ogilvy makes the evaluation on behalf of the drug czar's office.

The editor in chief of U.S. News, Stephen G. Smith, told Salon he was completely ignorant of the magazine's relationship with the drug czar's office. "You have my ironclad assurance we never do a story in an effort to win ad pages," said Smith. "It seems to me [publisher] Holiber acted appropriately in not making me privy. I guess the ad sales department has all sorts of arrangements I'm not privy to." Given his ignorance about the situation and the fact that his editorial content was not shaped to suit the drug czar, Smith stated: "I can't make any great moral pronouncements."

Holiber noted that a feature article earlier this year on prescription drugs for children might conceivably count as a match (though probably not, given the drug-control office's focus on illegal drugs). Holiber added, "I don't know how many stories counted." He said about half the stories submitted have been rejected by the drug czar's office and that "the editor does not know, he has no clue."