SHNS Drops Fumento in Latest Paid Pundit Scandal

By E&P Staff

Published: January 13, 2006 2:45 PM ET
NEW YORK Another columnist has been dropped by his distributor over revelations about previously undisclosed payments.

Scripps Howard News Service (SHNS) announced Friday that it severed its relationship with Michael Fumento -- a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute -- for not disclosing he had taken payments in 1999 from agribusiness giant Monsanto. The payments were revealed by BusinessWeek Online, which also broke a similar story revealing columnist Doug Bandow receiving payments. Copley News Service subsequently dropped Bandow.