Ethical Issues in Mass Media: Controlling Advertisers

How much control over editorial content do advertisers purchase along with their ad spaces? The value of that particular variable differs from one media outlet to another, more often dictated by publishing revenues than by good intentions. While the purpose of a media outlet might ostensibly be to provide news or information to readers, the purpose of a printed product often centers on making money for a business to succeed. The survival of every media outlet depends upon a network of stakeholders, which, within the print industry, are most prominently comprised of advertisers. In the case of community newspapers or small, weekly publications, the critical necessity of advertising to the health of a media outlet often results in upside-down priorities, creating business objectives that focus on keeping advertisers happy rather than on keeping editorial pure. Addressing all-too-commonplace issues of advertising demands versus publishing integrity, Wright (1990) asks, "Just how far does one go to please an advertiser?" (1) Without clear-cut editorial policies and unbendable codes of conduct, that is a question often left to the discretion of publishers, some of whom choose to prostitute their pages for all they are worth-usually to the detriment of ethical reporting and editorial morale. When faced with unconquerable exploits on the parts of publishers who have fallen prey to their advertisers' cannibalization of editorial content, editors are often best served by cutting their losses and parting ways from unethical publications.

Not long ago, at a Folio: Publishing Summit, the CEO of leading business-to-business media company Hanley Wood presented his list of "10 Deadly Sins Committed by Most Business-to-Business Media Companies" (Anton, 2008). On his list, among other grave "sins," Anton noted the sins of cowardice, complacency, and coziness on the parts of many publishers. Speaking of trade magazines in regard to their penchant for spinning news in favor of their stakeholders, Anton stated most outlets "...are a hometown newspaper that only covers the hometown team when the team wins." According to Anton, the acquisition of business profit allows a business to take risks-to challenge the status quo and undertake risky endeavors as a process of experimentation to see which business moves produce more profit and which result in failure. However, among publishers, business profit often coincides with the acquisition of cowardice-fear of taking risk for fear of making mistakes. If business profit comes as a result of allowing advertisers special concessions or say in editorial matters, then a change in the status quo can spell the loss of those profit sources. When advertisers that have been allowed to cultivate coziness with a media outlet see their sway undermined by an emergence of publishing ethics, those advertisers might well take their budgets to other outlets that demonstrate complacency with advertisers' demands.

Such pitfalls of publishing are clearly at work in the scenario concerning Let's Play Hockey, in which a publisher and an editor go head-to-head over a matter of a cover photograph that depicts the "wrong" brands of hockey equipment (Wright, 1990). In this situation, a publisher catches the ire of an advertiser called Christian Brothers due to a cover image that prominently displays equipment from Titan, a non-advertising Christian Brothers competitor. To mollify Christian Brothers, the publisher directs the newspaper editor's photographer to follow up the offending piece with a shot of a hockey player wearing the "right" brands of equipment. The editor and his photographer quietly let the directive go ignored, and the editor ultimately chooses to leave the newspaper in question. The ethical issue at stake in this scenario centers on the publisher's desire to "manufacture" (16) and "compromise" (17) news coverage in an effort to pander to a paying advertisers' preferences, for fear the advertising company will take its account elsewhere. As a classic case in the advertising-versus-editorial saga, this scenario illustrates a commonplace ethical failing on the part of a publisher who allows an advertiser to undercut an editor's oversight in exchange for continued advertising income.

To the editor's credit, in this case, he is able to let the situation dissolve without incurring further repercussions, and he escapes the ethical sinkhole of this particular publication in the end (Wright, 1990). The editor could have bent to the publisher's decree, running an apologetic photograph depicting the Christian Brothers-mandated imagery, and the newspaper audience likely would not have known the difference. However, the editor chooses to stick to his principles, albeit indirectly, by letting the matter pass quietly, without further discussion or argument with his publisher. Short of a hostile confrontation in which the editor might denounce the publisher's business practices and quit the job on the spot, the editor wins his case and makes his point with an effective, passive-aggressive response to the ethical conundrum. While the reading audience might never know (or care) who pays to place certain imagery or particular brands alongside the news, the editor maintains the peace of mind of knowing that he has not participated in the detriment of the publication's integrity. Principles of the Public Relations Society of America's doctrine toward fair handling of information can be applied to such situations, which are "not necessarily dishonest" but in which "information is marshaled to create the message" (p. 507) dependant upon the servitude of an outlet to its paying masters (Vivian, 2009).

In this case, only a particularly astute audience member might note a correlation between Christian Brothers' hockey equipment being pictured on a cover and Christian Brothers' advertisement appearing on a later page. Whether or not such a correlation is drawn, the effects of subliminal advertising and dictatorial print exposure are likely to invite only a mild increase in reader skepticism, if any response at all. Within a media landscape plastered with product placements and "sponsored by" notifications, consumers have grown both savvier and more resigned to constant advertising directed their way. The real detriment of such fast-and-loose ethical allowances are felt in the newsroom, as Wright (1990) notes in recounting the after effects of this unpleasant scenario: "The uneasy year went on. At the end of the year, we parted company." (19) Where discordant values must co-exist, editorial morale is often the factor to suffer a publisher's capitalistic priorities. Had the editor conceded his ethical position in this case, he, like the publisher, would have "set a precedent that will be hard to change." (26) As the publisher had gotten in the habit of giving in to advertisers' demands, the editor ran himself at risk of the habit of likewise giving in. Once that precedent grew established in internal dealings, top-down pressures to give in to advertisers' whims would likely only increase. Once an editor has conceded a position on ethics, that position becomes near unattainable in efforts to win it back from a publisher supported by advertisers who have gotten their way once and, naturally, want to get their way every subsequent time.

While recent Federal Trade Commission (2009) guidance seeks to clarify matters of full disclosure in advertising, endorsement, and testimonials, such revised and re-focused guidance was not readily available to assist in these gray areas two decades ago. Today, for instance, newspapers might experience some level of additional pressure to disclose material connections between paying advertisers and favorable exposure, if that exposure can be said to toe the line toward an endorsement (Federal Trade Commission, 2009). However, guidelines in respect to ethics remain imperfect and subject to subjective interpretation. Even with appropriate ethical guidance and codes of conduct, dilemmas presented by the divides between duty to employer and duty to audience, to society, or to the profession often result in personal conflict over duty to self for editors who must struggle to maintain harmony among opposing forces (Vivian, 2009). As Vivian notes, media ethics involves "an intellectual process of sorting through media commitments, audience expectations and broad principles." (p. 510) Matters that call for synthesizing between right and wrong often must fall to individual judgment, and, when individual principles do not align with institutional practices, the best solution for all parties is often to agree to disagree, as in the case over the errant cover photograph (Wright, 1990). What is an ethical taboo to one editor might be a part of doing business for another editor, and the integrity of a publication is often defined by the standards of those who oversee it. No editor is likely to healthily forego personal ethics to maintain employment, and no publisher is likely to feel called upon to rewrite categorical imperatives for the sake of an editor's peace of mind. Where a mismatch is inevitable, Wright (1990) demonstrates that "parted company" (19) is a simple solution to complex failings by association.

In the absence of black-and-white ethics statements and codes of conduct, editors often find themselves the uncomfortable middlemen between advertisers' demands and audiences' expectations. These battles have long been fought in newsrooms and publishers' offices, far from the eyes or ears of the consumer republic, as editors struggle to protect audiences' often-unconsidered rights to untainted news coverage. Commonplace is the editors' eventual ultimatum: the choice between bending to capitalistic will and finding a different job elsewhere. While a corrupt media environment might or might not be transformed by a lone editorial crusader, many editors have, in efforts to preserve their own moral structures, chosen paths of least resistance. In essence, seeking employment within a media organization that abides by complementary values and principles is often a more fruitful endeavor for a conflicted editor than attempting to re-route a publication that has already traveled a fair pace down an unethical track.

References

Anton, F. (2008, March). Frank Anton's 10 deadly sins of b-to-b publishing [Video file]. Video posted to http://www.foliomag.com/video/frank-anton-s-10-deadly-sins-b-b-publishing
Federal Trade Commission. (2009). FTC publishes final guides governing endorsements, testimonials. Retrieved March 21, 2010, from http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm
Vivian, J. (2009). The Media of Mass Communication (9th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Wright, D. (1990, July). Games publishers play: allowing an advertiser to call the shots. FineLine: The Newsletter On Journalism Ethics, 2(4), 2.