Article misrepresents institute

The conclusions of your recent editorial "Undermining a Free Press" (Dec. 21) were based upon stories in BusinessWeek Online and some newspapers. The BusinessWeek article misrepresented Peter Ferrara, a well-known policy expert and a senior fellow with the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), on the subject of accepting undisclosed funding from a lobbyist to write op-ed columns. The article also misrepresented me with reference to IPI's policies.

Unfortunately, subsequent stories failed to include an important part of the BusinessWeek story that said: "Ferrara began working at the Institute for Policy Innovation after the period during which he wrote the op-ed pieces for (Jack) Abramoff."

IPI does not and has never engaged in what is being called "pay for play" op-eds and has no connection whatsoever with Mr. Abramoff. To the best of our knowledge, no op-ed ever written on an IPI byline was written either directly or indirectly as a result of a lobbyist's payment. And Mr. Ferrara did NOT indicate that he planned to continue accepting payments from lobbyists. In fact, he has had a policy of not doing so for a number of years — which matches IPI's policy.

IPI prides itself on its academic independence and scholarly work. We are very sorry for the confusion the BusinessWeek article has caused.

Tom Giovanetti

President

Institute for Policy Innovation

Dallas