Monique’s post, this morning, about HealthSource RI’s advertising in Rhode Island media brings to mind Phil Marcelo’s Providence Journal article on Saturday, which ended with this:

Those interested in enrolling may visit HealthSource RI’s “Contact Center” at 70 Royal Little Drive in Providence or its temporary location at 250A Centerville Rd. in Warwick’s Summit Executive Park.

Both locations will offer extended hours on Sunday, March 30 (noon to 9 p.m.) and Monday, March 31(8 a.m. to10 p.m.).

Rhode Islanders may also enroll by phone at (855) 840-4774 or online at www.healthsourceri.com.

Now, I don’t think Marcelo was consciously catering to a big-money advertiser.  (HealthSource had given the Providence Journal $85,050 in the five months ending March 14.)  Inasmuch as the health benefits exchange is a government agency, publishing the information can arguably seen as a public service announcement for readers’ benefit.

Two points must be made, though.  First, it is explicitly part of HealthSource’s mission to compete with private companies offering similar products.  As I’ve noted, UnitedHealth is planning a small-business product similar to the one that HealthSource provides.  How would it look if United were to buy $90,000 in advertising over a few-month period and Providence Journal reporters started weaving product placements into their stories?

Maybe journalists should start being wary of the blurring line between government and profitable interests.

Second, the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity has come under attack, recently, including in the Providence Journal, based on allegations about our funding.  I’ve complained that this amounts to connecting dots without any dots.  We share some political philosophy with a national movement in which certain large donors play a role, and that alone is insinuated to be evidence that our work is somehow suspect.

Yet, here is a direct pair of dots, between HealthSource RI and the Providence Journal.  The link in that relationship is much more specific and conspicuous than a general link between billionaire libertarians and the Center’s work on eliminating the sales tax, and yet it isn’t even disclosed in Saturday’s story.

Is that evidence that the Providence Journal “operates largely in secret,” the phrase reporter Randal Edgar’s used about the Center?