Amid all the recent talk about breaking down the divide between advertising/commercial and journalism (see Marc Reeves, Greenslade and – previously Neil Benson – I thought it might be useful to note the ethical (and legal responsibilities) journalists still have.
I feel particularly strongly about this having recently been in contact with a young journalist writing for a niche publication that is little more than advertorials masquerading as editorial. I suspect this sort of thing is increasingly widespread in these straitened times, especially on struggling smaller titles which are perhaps second or third in their markets.
The example I came across seemed to be the ultimate example of what happens when weak editorial leadership caves in to an advertising operation which has decided to sacrifice all brand integrity to make a fast buck.
This is dumb commercially, because a devalued brand is worth less to advertisers in the long run and readers will ultimately see through what you are doing and vote with their eyeballs – thereby bringing down the whole house of cards.
But is also deeply wrong ethically.
The Advertising Standards Authority would rap a publication over the knuckles if it caught wind of this sort of thing, as it did with the Daily Express last year for publishing paid-for editorial.
The ASA code states:
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“Marketing communications must be obviously identifiable as such.
“Marketers and publishers must make clear that advertorials are marketing
communications; for example, by heading them ‘advertisement feature’.”
The PCC Editors’ Code states (clause one, section one) states:
“The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures.”
Nothing could be more “misleading” than paid-for content being portrayed as editorial.
And finally the National Union of Journalists code of conduct states:
“A journalist shall not lend himself/herself to the distortion or suppression of the truth because of advertising or other considerations.”
So that’s all pretty clear then.
I’d be the first person to bang the drum for journalists being more entrepreneurial. We are the people with both feet in the sectors we work in and have to use our brains to help the commercial teams make the money which underpins what we do. That might mean suggesting ideas for new conferences, events and other spin-off activities and even – in a small team – helping to organise them.
But doing this we have to remember that hundreds of journalists around the world have given their lives to tell their readers, viewers and listeners the truth. More than 100 journalists around the world are currently in prison because they refused to bow to the most severe government pressure.
If you are going to call yourself a journalist, be entrepreneurial by all means. But don’t sell your soul for short-term, self-defeating commercial gain.
Those who find themselves ever wavering should perhaps read again the posthumously published editorial of Sri Lankan newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunga (who was murdered in 2008) ‘And then they came for me’:
“No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.”
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