Illustration by Julia Midgley
I’ve been practicing journalism for half my life, so I’ve seen my fair share of ethical lapses – shoddy reporting, sketchy sources, the influence of advertising in the newsroom. In all cases, I either spoke up or chose to fight another battle.
But when I accepted a job as the art director of a prominent San Diego business magazine, an ethics violation left me with little choice but to resign.
I soon learned after accepting the job that the publisher and advertising staff routinely “sold” editorial content – a piece of reporting would carry an advertiser’s logo as a paid sponsorship. Some advertisers signed contracts for whole sections throughout the year and some were picked up along the way, depending on the content. If I were to create a 2-page spread on local medical advancements, say, I could reasonably expect to find a Kaiser-Permanente logo slapped underneath my byline.
“We can’t do that,” I said to the publisher on more than one occasion. “We have to remain neutral and objective.”
“We are neutral and objective,” he told me. “We control the content. It’s not pay for play.”
In an average issue, three of the six main feature stories would carry a business logo or “brought to you by” slug. It’s not a new concept – this quid pro quo of allowing advertisers to take ownership over information – but it’s an alarming one.
The Philadelphia Inquirer recently started a similar feature wherein a series of business briefs appears alongside the logo of a local bank. Their editorial note stated that the paper would remain objective and that the bank would have no say in the section’s content.
Doesn’t matter. Would readers expect objective reporting if, say, that bank were to be brought up on federal charges? Would a competing bank ever be able to expect equal coverage in the section? And would readers even know the difference?
“From what we know anecdotally, many good news organizations with good journalists at the helm compromise their ethics and succumb to pressures from advertisers,” says The Poytner Institute’s Bob Steele, who sits on the organization’s ethics board. “Mostly that’s with subtle elements – who gets interviewed and who doesn’t, or a journalist is less rigorous in his or her reporting.”
Journalists long ago adopted a code of ethics not just to ensure the fair practice of our craft – a level playing field – but to offer reassurance to a skeptical public that we operate with independence. When one publication acts with disregard to ethics, we all pay the price in credibility.
I found plenty of other ethics violations at the magazine – the acceptance of lavish gifts by the editorial department, the abundant use of sources and quotes from prominent advertisers, the failure to properly check facts, the ubiquitous sponsorship logos – but I was eventually unsuccessful in stopping them.
When I failed to make my case to my publisher, I brought in a dog-eared copy of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics and even the code of the American Society of Business Publication Editors. I highlighted the part that said, “Distinguish news from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two.” He waved them away with his hand and told me to stop trying to affect his bottom line.
I crafted my letter of resignation that same day.
It was difficult to walk away from a good job at a slick magazine, but ultimately the decision was an easy one. When I began my career as a journalist 15 years ago, I made an unspoken commitment to practice the craft with integrity and to defend against those who don’t. My time in the musty old basement of the UA journalism department helped to reinforced those ethics, and my mentors there (particularly Susan Knight) showed me how those values would someday serve me well. We journalists have little else but our good names and our credibility, and now more than ever, we can’t afford to lose that. I’ve made my fair share of mistakes in my time as a journalist to be sure, but if I am going to err, I want to err on the side of integrity.
The future of our craft holds more questions than answers as more and more citizen journalists take up the cause online. The average American, research says, is exposed to 3,000 advertising messages a day and that number is quickly rising. But the one place he or she should not expect to find a sales pitch is in our reporting.
People told me I was fighting a losing battle, that I was too altruistic, that the very nature of journalism is changing to reflect the economic climate. “The line between editorial and advertising has been blurred in recent years,” one publisher told me.
All the more reason to fight the fight.
