The Ethical Optimist

Lately, our team here at Utopia has been snagged by a few pseudo magazines and production companies that are using less than ethical tactics. The game, as they play it, has been around the PR business for years, but it is a shame that they continue to operate.

Referred to as “pay for play” operations, they usually target corporations and non-profits (because most PR agencies catch them at the door) with a pitch that they are legitimate media outlets and want to do a story on the company or one of its officers.

Once several pre-interviews have taken place, they come back to the organization with either a “production charge” or request for a vendor list. They usually target a CEO or director of marketing who may not realize that this is not an accepted practice.

Bottom line? If you pay for editorial coverage, it’s not editorial. It’s advertising…period. Legitimate news outlets DO NOT ask for payment in return for doing a news piece.

Here’s the sticky part. Many of these production companies are producing content for legitimate networks such as Discovery, Oxygen Network, etc. I often wonder if these network executives even know that they’re hitting up the subjects of their interviews for money…maybe/maybe not.

One of our junior people was recently taken for a ride with a magazine that purports to do editorial features on CEOs. Once they were done interviewing our client’s CEO (which took a considerable chunk of the CEO’s time), they told us they would need a list of the company’s vendors. Why? So they could “invite” them to advertise. It’s unethical on two fronts.

First, they never identified this requirement upfront. Second, their “invite” is a bullying tactic. If you’re a vendor and your “invited” to advertise in a magazine that is doing a puff piece on a major client, you may not feel you have a choice for fear of alienating that client in some way.

It’s similar to one of your key clients asking you to buy a ticket to a charity they support and you find out each ticket is $1,000! You can’t really say no without jeopardizing the relationship.

As media fragments, my concern is that we’re going to see more “quasi” production companies providing content to legitimate outlets and more self-publishers positioning themselves as legitimate news outlets when in fact, both are just money machines.

In addition to hurting our clients and our industry, it hurts the consumer, who doesn’t know where this news is coming from, is not aware that it is a pay-for-play and takes the information at face value with the imprimatur of credibility.

It would be nice if our trade publications could “out” these guys. Anyone?