The Ethical Optimist

Welcome back and happy New Year!

Well, the year’s gotten off to a rather interesting start with a story about the NY Times cracking down on freelancers for ethical violations.

Mike Albo, a New York Times freelancer was suspended from writing his column after being outed by Jeff Bercovici, a reporter for DailyFinance.com:

Writers for Newsweek and The New York Times (NYT) were among the 150 guests who enjoyed a free trip to Jamaica last weekend, courtesy of the consumer e-newsletter Thrillist and JetBlue (JBLU), among a host of other sponsors. Those guests received a round-trip flight from JFK International to Montego Bay and two nights at the Iberostar Rose Hall resort, where they had beachfront balcony rooms and personal butlers, and “overstuffed gift bags … filled with T-shirts, sunglasses” and other goodies, according to this write-up of the weekend by one participant.

After learning that one of its reporters, Kurt Soller, had gone on the junket, The Washington Post Co. (WPO)’s Newsweek quickly concluded that his weekend in Jamaica violated the magazine’s ethics guidelines. “We will be reimbursing Thrillist for the trip,” a spokesman says.

The Times took a more lenient line on its writer, Mike Albo, a humorist and performer who writes the paper’s “Critical Shopper” column every other Thursday. A Times spokeswoman said Albo “is a freelancer and was not on assignment for The Times, which he made clear to the organizers of the trip. So we do not see any violation of our rules.” (Update: See Times’ revised statement.)

But a careful reading of the paper’s stringent ethics policy suggests that Albo transgressed the spirit, if not the letter, of the guidelines. The policy expressly forbids accepting “free or discounted transportation and lodging” and “gifts, tickets, discounts, reimbursements or other benefits from individuals or organizations covered (or likely to be covered) by their newsroom.” Those passages are directed at staffers, but further down, the policy decrees that freelancers “should accept the same ethical standards as staff members as a condition of their assignments for us. If they violate these standards, they should be denied further assignments.”

I think Bercovici does a good job in reviewing the situation with a few exceptions. First, he fails to mention the role of the public relations folks who organized these trips. Frankly, they seem to be oblivious to the new rules of media engagement. Like many organizations, they hope that by inviting freelancers, they can skirt the ethical guidelines of the publications that use their content. Surprise, folks, you can’t sidestep the rules anymore.

Second, Bercovici believes that these are honest mistakes on the part of the freelancers. He cites, and I’d agree, that due to shrinking newsrooms and the resulting pressures facing editors, folks aren’t communicating clearly and they’re overlooking the rules in favor of expedience. While I buy his argument, most journalists (freelance or staff) worth their salt know that taking free trips, etc., is crossing the integrity line. So while I understand his argument, in this case it’s weak.

I’ll say this again for those of you who missed an entire year’s worth of posts, it’s about transparency and disclosure. If I (or my grandma) read a story about a resort in Jamaica, and the writer clearly discloses in the article that he was a guest of the resort, I’ll take the info with a healthy grain of salt. That doesn’t mean I won’t read it, nor does it mean I won’t do further exploration of the resort if I’m planning a trip.

And, if I follow that particular writer and we’ve built a reader/writer relationship based on accuracy/credibility (i.e., he’s never steered me wrong before), it won’t matter to me. I’ll buy into the myth that he took the trip and still wrote an objective piece.

This is a situation that I believe we see more and more of in this business. Let’s face it; news outlets don’t have the money to send staffers to review locations, facilities, etc., but they need the content. On the other hand, they don’t want anyone else paying the freight. As Bercovici points out, it’s somewhat unrealistic.

I think what we may eventually see is writers who develop a following based on the content of their writing. They will fully disclose who funds their adventures, and they will write credibly. Those who pay for their trips will have to live with the good/bad reviews they get. In this full-disclosure model, the writer is under no pressure to kiss anyone’s ass, the reader understands how the writer got to visit the location, and content/credibility will remain king. In the end, PR pros with a great product/destination will still be able to secure terrific coverage for their clients/organizations.

So, what’s the problem? Why hide? The Times, folks, they are a’changin.