Double standards?
Gene Maddaus, a staff writer for the Pasadena Star-News, makes a simple, yet profound suggestion to KTLA television in Los Angeles. It's this: Admit that your claim to be a morning news show is a fraud and simply call yourself the "KTLA Morning Show."
Maddaus' suggestion comes as the station and journalism ethicists discuss the fact that the morning show's hosts received comp rooms and other amenities at the newly remodeled Ritz-Carlton, Huntington Hotel in Pasadena. After enjoying the amenities, the morning show broadcast from the Pasadena area, extolling the virtues of the hotel and what it offered potential guests. As the issue heated up on the pages of the Star-News and the Los Angeles Times, it was also revealed that one of the anchors received a $10,000 dining room makeover free from a furniture company owner seeking positive coverage. The story never ran, and Allen Smith, the furniture company owner, wants to be paid.
Most of us don't get too upset these days to hear about these conflicts of interest among celebrity-seeking television personalities. Sadly, we expect it. But the real issue here is the double standard: at this point KTLA's owner, the Chicago-based Tribune Company, has been silent on this faux pas, even though it presents a clear violation of the company's journalistic code of ethics. Certainly if reporters from the Tribune-owned L.A. Times attempted to mislead the public, there would be you-know-what to pay. In fact the last time, L.A. Times employees tried to pull the wool over readers' eyes--the sad Staples advertising affair--people lost their jobs and the Chandler family lost its courage and sold the paper to the out-of-towners. Certainly there has been some discussion between Chicago and KTLA, one hopes at least!
Meanwhile, let's see if KTLA gets ethics and changes the name of its morning show. Don't hold your breath!
Here's more on the story from L.A. Observed.
Maddaus' suggestion comes as the station and journalism ethicists discuss the fact that the morning show's hosts received comp rooms and other amenities at the newly remodeled Ritz-Carlton, Huntington Hotel in Pasadena. After enjoying the amenities, the morning show broadcast from the Pasadena area, extolling the virtues of the hotel and what it offered potential guests. As the issue heated up on the pages of the Star-News and the Los Angeles Times, it was also revealed that one of the anchors received a $10,000 dining room makeover free from a furniture company owner seeking positive coverage. The story never ran, and Allen Smith, the furniture company owner, wants to be paid.
Most of us don't get too upset these days to hear about these conflicts of interest among celebrity-seeking television personalities. Sadly, we expect it. But the real issue here is the double standard: at this point KTLA's owner, the Chicago-based Tribune Company, has been silent on this faux pas, even though it presents a clear violation of the company's journalistic code of ethics. Certainly if reporters from the Tribune-owned L.A. Times attempted to mislead the public, there would be you-know-what to pay. In fact the last time, L.A. Times employees tried to pull the wool over readers' eyes--the sad Staples advertising affair--people lost their jobs and the Chandler family lost its courage and sold the paper to the out-of-towners. Certainly there has been some discussion between Chicago and KTLA, one hopes at least!
Meanwhile, let's see if KTLA gets ethics and changes the name of its morning show. Don't hold your breath!
Here's more on the story from L.A. Observed.
posted by Ken Waters | 11:50 AM
1 Comments:
This is an interesting quandary. Though it is true if these people want to call themselves a “news show” they shouldn’t be taking excessive comps like 10,000 dollar dining rooms as a gift whether they spotlight the company in a story or not, it seems like this has somewhat become the norm even in reputable news organizations like the Tribune Company.
In my sophomore year of college, before I transferred here, I had the opportunity to work in the Living Arts department of the Boston Globe. This section covers Home, Arts, Entertainment (television, movies, music), Food and Books. There wasn’t a day that went by that something free wasn’t delivered either personally or through the mail. A lot of it was inexpensive junk, promotional items like the latest cheerios cereal accompanied by a banana tree or something obscure like that, these were usually things that were thrown to the interns or put out on a shelf for whoever walked by to take. But, more often than you would imagine something expensive would surface and it was not put out on the freebie table.
Once I saw the home editor at the time take home a set of expensive silk throw pillows from a boutique in Boston that were worth a few hundred dollars, since each pillow was valued at about 150$. I remember this because I remember thinking how great it would be to go home with something worth so much, I also remember because they were never written about or featured in the home section.
There were other things as well, like tickets to concerts or wine tastings that no one planned on writing about that would be given out to their friends or coworkers or if all else failed, the first person who accepted. Perhaps they should have sent them back, but it seems like it’s became standard to accept “gifts” like these.
It may be unethical to accept lavish gifts for nothing in return, but it also seems like my experience of witnessing first-hand how many “freebies” come through a news paper department like the Living Arts cannot be an isolated incident.
Of course in theory, the LA times reporting on this incident is the right thing to do because I agree accepting free hotel rooms and $10,000 dining rooms is absurd. However, I can’t imagine the LA Times is sending back everything sent to their paper in hopes of being written about as well. Maybe they are, who am I to say, but I would be surprised if we went down there and there wasn’t a “freebie table” with a banana tree or some other obscure item sitting on, just up for grabs.
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