Imagine this: You are the media relations manager of a government department or a company. You are organising a major event for which you need media coverage. 

You invite journalists to a press conference about the event you are organising. They turn up in big numbers and you are impressed with the attendance. The coverage is impressive. Every journalist who attended the press conference publishes or broadcasts a positive story. 

Your boss is impressed and proposes that all journalists who covered the news conference should be paid some money as a token of appreciation.

You put money in envelopes and call journalists, telling them that your boss wants to thank them for a job well done. The journalists start flocking in, and every journalist walks away with a cash envelope.

A media relations specialist with a journalism background would probably not pay journalists as they know that their code of ethics does not allow it.

But not all media relations specialists have a journalism background. Some do not know anything about journalism ethics and would not hesitate to pay journalists.

The code of ethics is essentially a set of rules about how journalists do their work and how they engage with the public from which they gather news. Journalists have to abide by it. It provides that journalists are not supposed to be paid by people or organisations that do not employ them. 

If you are impressed with their work, you can send them a thank-you email—or reach out to them on their social media platforms and tell them what you think of their work. Journalists who take financial rewards from people they interviewed/covered are violating their professional ethics.

Why third-party payments are unacceptable

A journalist covering an event works a bit like a football referee. They are not supposed to take sides. They gather facts, verify them, ask questions, and once they are satisfied that everything is true, is as it should be, they present the facts to the public.

When you pay journalists you do not employ, you compromise their independence and create a conflict of interest. You make it hard for them to ask the hard questions if they have to, to present all sides of the story.

People take journalists and their journalism seriously only if they are certain that editorial decisions are not influenced by outside interests such as political or commercial pressures or any personal interests.

In some news organisations, journalists and freelance journalists working for those organisations use Declaration of Personal Interest Forms to declare any interests which could be perceived as a conflict of interests. If you are a reporter, you would not be allowed to cover a private-member club for which you serve as president.

A potential conflict of interest arises when there is the possibility that a journalist’s external activities or interests may affect, or be reasonably perceived as affecting, a news organisation’s reporting, impartiality and its integrity.

The code of ethics sets journalists apart from anyone creating content on the internet and claiming to be a journalist. A blogger or a content creator may be viewed as a journalist, but they are not governed by any ethics code. You can be a content creator with millions of followers and still not be a journalist.

At many well-established news organisations, a breach of the code of ethics by journalists often leads to dismissal or resignation.

News organisations can publish sponsored content and get paid for it—but this does not violate the code of ethics because it does not create conflict of interest. The content is clearly labelled “sponsored”, and it is never presented as news. It is like advertising.

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