Journalists for Sale

I think the only reason you're "astounded" by my response is that you think angry bluster can cover over the unethical nature of what you're proposing to do. I'll address some of your points specifically:

First: You claim to be amazed that we "quote from, and link to, an article that quotes an editor from the Wall Street Journal who was asked whether he would allow his reporters to work as consultants for me." We quoted that editor accurately, when he said that what you're doing wouldn't meet his paper's ethical standards. The New York Times replied similarly. I think that their comments provide an illuminating look at what top journalistic institutions think of the ethics of what you're trying to do. It doesn't mean that we think or claimed that reporters from those organizations were going to work for you. Indeed, the editor at the Wall Street Journal stated clearly that his journalists would not be working for you. Your complaint, as originally stated, was as follows:

Just because others have falsely reported that we may be recruiting full time journalists from the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, for example, does not make it so.

As I've just explained now for the second time here, the [http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/11/which_news_organizations_would.html NY Magazine piece] that we quoted and linked to did not "falsely report" that you would be recruiting journalists from the WSJ and NYT. To the contrary, it reported clearly and accurately the exact opposite: namely, that no way in hell would journalists from those institutions be able to even consider working for you. We've been over these facts a couple of times now, and it's quite clear that your complaint on this point was simply false. It's absurd for you to pretend that you have been "fact-checking" our piece. To the contrary, you've been injecting a falsehood and hoping nobody notices the difference.

Second: You now claim that your business will find some ethical way to operate in a "gray area" that involves things like hiring a part-time producer for Fox News to do projects for you. It happens that I do think this sort of gray area is ethically problematic. We have reported in the past, for example, on problems with the reporting by [[Paul Moran]], a stringer for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) who moonlit for the [[Rendon Group]], a PR form that works for the Pentagon. Through his contacts at Rendon, Moran got introduced to the [[Iraqi National Congress]], which provided him with a source (now proven to be a fabricator) who became the basis for a major story that Moran did for ABC, claiming that Iraq had secret weapons of mass destruction. Moran used this source in reports for ABC, and it also got picked up by the New York Times (something the Times now greatly regrets). If Moran had not been working for two masters, he would have better served journalism and the public interest. I don't think he was an evil person, but he crossed an ethical line when he let his work for a PR firm affect his journalism. That's the sort of ethical train wreck you're lining up to happen at your company. Mark my words.

Third: Your website claims, as as I stated previously, that you will be lining up "top financial journalists" and "top investigative journalists" to work for your clients. I think most people would agree that there is a big difference between a "top journalist" and a part-time producer for a local Fox affiliate. Your defense against my claim that your business model is unethical now seems to be that you are not inducing journalists to misbehave, you are merely overhyping your product to clients. Instead of claiming that you are offering "top journalists," perhaps you should rewrite your website to state that you will be offering "desperate, underemployed hangers-on from the bottom rungs of journalism." If you make that correction on your website, I will give appropriate consideration to your request here for a correction from me.

Finally: You wrote, "That person has to give up his or her livelihood in this era of major media cutbacks? Shame on you." I never wrote anything about anyone having to give up their livelihood. You may indeed find some success in finding people who are so desperate in this economy that they will swallow their principles and work for you. I doubt that they'll make any decisions about "giving up their livelihood" because of anything I write here. Sure, they may well decide that feeding their family is more important than their journalistic principles. However, as a strict point of fact, they do have other options besides going to work for you. For example, they could try prostitution or holding up liquor stores. I wouldn't advise those options for them either, because in addition to being ethically problematic, they are risky. For the same reason, I would hope that journalists who hope to survive this recession with their reputations intact have enough sense to avoid going to work for you. It might be money in the short run, but if they hope to stay in journalism, it's not going to be good for their careers.