The U.S. Education Department paid $700,000 to the Ketchum [3] public relations and marketing firm, to produce two video news releases [4] and to rate newspaper coverage according to how favorably reporters described the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind [5] law in 2003. Democratic Senators Frank R. Lautenberg and Edward M. Kennedy have criticized the Ketchum contract as "an illegal use of taxpayer funds. ... A comprehensive, nationwide media study identifying journalists and news organizations writing favorable stories on President Bush and his political party's commitment to education has only a political purpose."