We’re not for sale
For the past half-hour I’ve been staring out the window trying to imagine a way to address this topic without seeming defensive or making it sound too personal.
Can’t be done: This is personal and I am defensive – with good cause, in my judgment.
Two weeks ago I wrote a column suggesting that MCI would be foolish to spurn Verizon in favor of Qwest.
Verizon paid me nothing to make that case, nor did it pay Network World to have me make it.
Three weeks ago I wrote a mildly flattering column about a little-known company called KnowNow and its designs to make RSS a big deal in corporate networks.
KnowNow paid me nothing but the courtesy of a telephone interview.
What I am trying to say is that we are not on the take here at Network World . . . and the reason I’m feeling the need to say what should be obvious is that such is not the case elsewhere in the media. A front-page story in last Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal exposed what apparently is a common practice among “experts” quoted in television news reports, including individuals who bill themselves as technology journalists.
In a nutshell, these hucksters masquerading as independent commentators solicit payments from vendors in exchange for promising to mention the vendors’ products on local television news programs. The mentions are invariably positive, while the financial arrangements are not revealed to the TV audience.
In other words, paid shills are being pawned off on an unsuspecting public as unbiased commentators.
These charades have even spilled over into TV’s national morning shows, either through lax or non-existent ethical standards on the part of the programmers, or a failure on the part of the shills to disclose their financial conflicts.
Among the most egregious examples is Corey Greenberg, the so-called “tech editor” for NBC’s “Today Show,” and a former editor and writer for audio magazines. Greenberg has charged companies $15,000 apiece to plug their products on what this cottage industry calls “satellite media tours,” which make putative “experts” available to news broadcasters. His paying clients have included Apple, HP, Sony and Seiko-Epson.
According to the Journal story: “Mr. Greenberg says his business resembles a magazine that collects money from advertisers and then reviews products marketed by the same companies. He says he can maintain a wall between his business and his editorial practices. ‘I am a one-man magazine,’ he says.”
Greenberg’s business resembles a real magazine – an ethical one – in much the same way that I resemble Brad Pitt, which is to say only in our respective dreams.
Being paid to flog a product on television – or in print, for that matter – is honest work when conducted above board and fully disclosed to viewers and readers. But that’s not what Greenberg and his ilk are doing. They are passing themselves off as unbiased experts when they are in fact nothing of the sort.
Why bother to point this out here? Don’t savvy readers who know Network World already take for granted that we’re on the up and up?
We’d like to believe so, but not all readers are savvy or know us well. It’s not uncommon for some who find fault with our news coverage or the opinions expressed in columns such as this one to accuse us of being in the pocket of this or that advertiser. So why wouldn’t someone reading that Journal article suspect – or even presume – that such practices are accepted widely throughout the print media as well in television?
They aren’t accepted here.
Next week I promise to climb down off the soapbox and get back to writing about technology. E-mail to buzz@nww.com.
