Ethics update
And just in case anyone's still wondering whether the so-called mainstream media hold a monopoly on ethics, I bring to your attention two items.
The first I would consider a journalistic misdemeanor, I guess:
Over at the Cincinnati Enquirer's online site, Cincinnati.com, there's a blog about Iraq written by military staffer whose job is to generate positive news about U.S. efforts to rebuild Iraq.Grandma in Iraq is the title of the blog, written by Suzanne M. Fournier, a Public Affairs Officer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The posts are largely upbeat. "Everytime [sic] an Iraqi contractor bids on a reconstruction project. . . it is a sign that democracy is winning here," reads one. "I am confident we'll have another banner year of success for the benefit of the people of Iraq and democracy in the Middle East," another says.
Cincinnati.com identifies "Grandma" as "Suzanne Fournier of Alexandria, grandmother of 15, [who] posts from Iraq, where she is stationed with the U.S. Army Corp. [sic] of Engineers." It makes no mention she's a flack.
In her posts Fournier doesn't conceal her day job, but she doesn't trumpet it, either. In reading her 50 or so posts currently online, we could find only one where she explicitly states, "I do public affairs[.]" In a handful of other posts, she makes passing references such as, "I just put out a press release."
In general, I think it's fine for a newspaper or Web site to have anyone blogging for it that it wants, as long as that person isn't lying, fabricating and/or plagiarizing. (For obvious reasons, each individual site also should consider how well or poorly any particular blogger might help the site achieve whatever its goals are for its content.) However, in fairness to readers, any possible conflicts of interest the blogger might have must be fully disclosed. That didn't happen here, although the evidence that there was any deliberate attempt to deceive readers is thin at best.
Our second example is much more serious -- not only a journalistic felony, but possibly a real-life felony as well.
A New York Post Page Six staffer solicited $220,000 from a high-profile billionaire in return for a year's "protection" against inaccurate and unflattering items about him in the gossip page, the Daily News has learned.In two 90-minute meetings, characterized by a shocking breach of ethics, Jared Paul Stern, a fixture on the city's gossip scene who also edited Page Six The Magazine, asked for a series of payments from Ron Burkle, the managing partner of Yucaipa Cos., a conglomerate with interests in supermarkets, celebrity clothing lines, and media.
It was all a setup, a sting monitored by law enforcement, including the U.S. attorney's office and the FBI, who are now investigating the extortion attempt. The meetings, on March 22 and March 31, were videotaped.
The shakedown began with a series of e-mails sent last month by Stern to Burkle.
It reached a boiling point more than an hour into the first meeting after Stern outlined various ways Burkle could buy protection on the gossip page.
An exasperated Burkle finally said, "How much do you want?" after Stern said he could control coverage by Richard Johnson, the column's chief writer, and his staff. "Um, $100,000 to get going and then you could get it to me on a month-to-month, maybe like $10,000," replied Stern.
"Okay, that's a great deal," said Burkle, the subject of numerous Page Six items including a "date" with supermodel Gisele Bundchen, meetings with other women and a nasty breakup with a longtime lover.
Aside from blackmail being a felony and all, the only thing I can find wrong with this scenario is that, as Will Bunch observes, we in the newspaper bidness have unconscionably neglected it as a possible revenue stream.