by Joe Wallace
The holiday terrorism incident involving Northwest Flight 253 has effects that go far beyond some additional hassles in the screening line at the airport. One example–the tempest started over what’s known as “checkbook journalism”, where in at least two cases networks were exposed as having paid to get access to a news story. This little controversy even extends to the exclusive interview with the hero of Northwest Flight 253, Jasper Schuringa aired on CNN,
Want to know why Schuringa hasn’t been on the news in person since that day? He asked for additional payment beyond the licensing fee CNN paid for one of Schuringa’s cell phone images–more money or no further questions, please. That’s according to a report at Mediate.com.
Some bloggers and freelance writers who have never taken a journalism class may well wonder what the big deal is. But for those of us who studied a far different kind of writing than blogging and online media know there once was a time when journalism–the art and craft of reportage–was held (at least in theory) to a system of ethics which included the notion that you don’t pay to get a news story or insert your own personal bias into the coverage.
Cynics–myself included–feel that it’s simply not possible to avoid personal bias unless a computer is writing the story for you. But transparency helps mitigate that somewhat–by admitting your biases up front you warn the reader to draw their own conclusions based on the available facts and not to accept what’s printed as the final word.
Not that ANY of the networks pay attention to these ethical issues. Nightly, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and plenty of others on both sides of the political coin routinely present their views and opinions with plenty of factual bluster but little in the way of disclaimers or warnings that what is being shown isn’t NEWS per se, but rather commentary on the news.
Of all the pundits, I’d have to give Rachel Maddow the highest praise for trying to appear most commentator-like (as opposed to newsy). One thing I particularly admire is a consistent tendency to ask her interviewees, “Did I get these facts right? Am I misinterpreting what you’ve said?”
What does all this have to do with freelancing?
Bottom line, I think it’s good to remind people that once upon a time, writers and journalists at least pretended to have a system of ethics that guided how they approached their jobs. Not that I think the current crop of writers and journalists are completely out of control and shoveling a large amount of crap, but it is definitely a quite different landscape now than it has been in my lifetime. The old assumptions about how things are done are no longer there…and that’s a pity.
There are plenty of professional organizations for writers and freelancers that do hold ethics dear, and I commend anyone who belongs to RTNDA or similar groups.
In an age where people don’t see anything potentially wrong or misleading about paid editorial content (read: blog product and service reviews written by people paid by the company supplying said products or services) it’s good to be reminded that yes, there ARE ethical standards, even if many choose to bend them as far as they can with no transparency. If you choose to run “reviews”
and blog posts about a company in a favorable light in exchange for compensation, consider running a transparency alert somewhere on your blog–the credibility you save may not earn you any more money, but it may spare you some bad noise from readers and colleagues alike.
P.S.
There are some in the freelance community who HATE when we start talking about transparency. They get angry at the very mention of the word. To these people, I humbly ask…why is that, exactly? Do you feel threatened somehow by the notion that being honest is a good thing?