Do you think this is a conflict of interest?
Recently a PR, who I won't be naming, contacted me asking if I would be interested in working with them in a paid capacity to help generate story ideas across their client base and then pitching/writing those stories as a journalist.
I thanked them for the opportunity but said I couldn't be paid by a PR agency/company to work on stories that I would then be writing about for a newspaper or magazine. I said that it would be a conflict of interest. If we have journalists being paid by both the company featured and the newspaper/magazine, then that crosses boundaries. I’m sure we all want an independent unbiased press, not one where actually the journalist has been paid by one of the companies to feature them in the press.
They said I was the first freelancer to decline it on this basis. And although the extra income would be wonderful right now, I stood my ground as it didn’t sit well with me.
Bemused that some freelance journalists were agreeing to this way of working, I checked in with a couple of my key editors to find out their views.
This is what one of my editors at the nationals said:
"It would be unethical. And I couldn’t commission you to write a feature including a company that was paying you to do its PR."
Another agreed:
“Short answer - yes, I totally agree with you - I think that would be unethical, and that as an editor, I would automatically assume a freelancer wouldn't be being paid by the companies they are mentioning.”
So, please, by all means work with a freelance journalist by brainstorming ideas (little plug here for my content network of talented hacks and I who can help you here). But then don’t ask them to pitch and write a story on the same company to a title (and any freelance journalists reading this, please don't also do this). Imagine reading an article and then finding out the journalist was being paid to feature said company. Public trust in journalism is already waning. Let's make sure the media industry still has some integrity left.