TV Charity Drives: Toys for Tots, Money for Stations

[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Paul Farhi]
Washington (DC)-area television stations have enlisted the help of sponsors for public service campaigns. The campaigns raise money and other donations for deserving recipients. But the efforts raise money for something else, too: the TV stations. Companies pay the stations to be a sponsors. The payments buy TV ads that tout the charitable campaigns and the companies' involvement in them. The stations, in turn, often feature their paying sponsors on news reports about the charitable drives, usually without disclosing to viewers that the station is receiving money from the ad buys. Station representatives have said such "community outreach" drives are a winning proposition for all parties: The charity reaps publicity and public contributions, and the station and its corporate partners gain recognition and goodwill. But critics have said the practice has troubling aspects. Other local stations said they resist turning sponsors into news because that might suggest that the sponsor has paid to influence coverage -- a violation not just of journalistic practice, but potentially of federal rules against payola. One journalism ethics expert, Bob Steele of the St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Poynter Institute, said such coverage is "rife with ethical potholes and land mines" because it calls into question the stations' journalistic independence. News coverage "should not be unduly influenced by commercial considerations, or by developing revenue streams, or by maximizing ad dollars, or by pleasing our business clients," he said. "Those factors are illegitimate forces that will undermine journalistic credibility."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR200512...
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