If I understand this right Mike Fumento (who has written for us) solicited money from an agribusiness corp to fund a book. They weren’t lobbying him–he went to someone who he knew would support what he’s doing to make it possible, essentially; he lobbied them, I guess you coudl say? It was not small beans for a writer–$50,000–but it was 1999. According to Businessweek:

In the Jan. 5 [2006] column, Fumento wrote that St. Louis-based Monsanto has about 30 products in the pipeline that will aid farmers, “but also help us all by keeping prices down and allowing more crops to be grown on less land.”

Should he have disclosed in that column that he got money from Monsanto in 1999? I would have erred on the side of disclosing (if I were in that situation, which I can’t really imagine–I’m more the beg you to come to our cool party gal)–or cited a different company instead (assuming there are other companies doing similar things). But is that a killing-the-column offense (Fumento’s been cut off by Scripps Howard)? Or is that a point-it-out-in-a-correction offense? I don’t know. But this seems a reasonable question, right? I’m thinking outloud to me colleagues here…