Ellington

Everybody does it. That's essentially the explanation ABC broadcaster Chris Cuomo gave for the television network's practice of paying for photographs—a tricky way of paying sources to speak.

"I wish money was not in the game, but you know it's going to go somewhere else," Cuomo told Howard Kurtz, media critic for The Daily Beast. "You know someone else is going to pay for the same things."

Last week, ABC announced it would no longer pay for exclusive interviews such as the one with a woman who texted former congressman Anthony Weiner or the wooing of accused child-murderer Casey Anthony's family. So maybe not everybody thinks it's right to pay a source for access.

The ABC decision came after the British phone-hacking scandal of the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper, News of the World. Reporters hacked into voice mails for stories. British tabloids have a cocky kind of pride about their wild sensationalism, but this cruel mining of privacy shocked even the Brits. News of the World closed operation as readers associated journalism with garbage diving.

If some good came out of the evil, perhaps one could understand it. The News of the World crime of phone-hacking wasn't to expose corruption, weapons hoarding or genocide. It was to get sensational news that doesn't affect most people's lives.

Even when a reporter thinks spying on voice mail is for a greater good, it's still against the law. Two reporters at the Cincinnati Enquirer, a Gannett-owned newspaper, exposed corruption at Chiquita International in 1998. The story detailed bribery of Colombian officials, banana plantations run under different names and allegations of drug smuggling. The Enquirer apologized after it learned one of the reporters, Mike Gallagher, hacked into voicemails of Chiquita officials. He pled guilty to felony charges and was sentenced to five years probation and community service. Gannett paid Chiquita $14 million in damages, Editor and Publisher reported in 2001.

Pressure to get a story—whether it is celebrity trivia or shocking wrong-doing—may blind reporters in the quest to beat the competition and please demanding bosses. In Mississippi, a similar pressure can come down from publishers to reporters. It's not necessarily about grabbing a shocking headline. It's usually more about pleasing advertisers.

This writer has worked for several Mississippi newspapers that pushed for unethical journalism. Some were subtle about it, some were blatant. Some of them still do it.

A common practice at many county weeklies in Mississippi is the unmarked "advertorial." To boost sales or to make nice with important people, newspapers will essentially sell space without labeling it as advertisement. An advertiser may write his copy or a low-level employee writes it, and the advertiser proofs it. The editor or the publisher will run this item without giving any clue to the reader that it is paid advertising.

Another advertorial in many small Mississippi newspapers is the first-time advertiser bonus. It's a soft story that a business gets when advertising for the first time.

Here's another subtle type of advertorial. The advertiser really thinks the paper should do a story about her new services. After all, she has been advertising in the paper for years. Doesn't she deserve some kind of special treatment?

That's one of the many problems of running advertorials—it teaches a community that news space is for sale. It also makes readers assume that any story running in such a publication probably got there because someone paid for it. It is a thin line for papers based on a heavy advertorial model when it comes to political endorsements.

Yes, of course it's legitimate to write a story about a shop providing new services, but it should be done without any thought of whether or not that business buys advertising. Advertising and editorial departments should be separate. This is basic, something many codes of ethics outline (including that of the Jackson Free Press).

The Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics says this: "Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know." It goes on to list things journalists should do, including "deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage."

I have worked for Mississippi publishers who laughed at these ideas. I have worked for some who didn't like the practice of running advertorials, but felt they had no choice in an always-bad economy. The customer is always right, some said. Others would just shake their heads and try to explain in paternal tones that "everybody does it."

No. You should know that everybody does not do it, and that Mississippi publications don't have to be corrupt. If you know of specific examples of a publication offering some kind of unmarked advertorial deal, let me know about it.

Write Valerie Wells at {encode="[email protected]" title="[email protected]"}.