Name Your Price

Alex Mazer
am158905@ohio.ed

There is always a continuous ethical dilemma involving the boundary between sponsors and advertisers, and the world of journalism. A lot of the assigned articles talked about the unethical practices of some media sources and provide reasoning behind the use of sponsor money.

Many times, media sources lose sight of their true purpose; to present the news to the public in a neutral way. Not only are reporters fighting against editors, they are also fighting against advertisers and sponsors. They have to think about the stories they choose to write based on who they are going to offend. If there is a story that may deal with a sponsor in a poor light, a lot of times they will overlook the story just to protect the sponsor and the money they give to the paper or station. I don’t think the news should have to suffer based on who writes the biggest check or any check for that matter. Give all the facts to the public regardless.

It can, however, be argued that journalists need to play by the rules sometimes. Journalism is now more than ever a business, and one that is extremely cutthroat in today’s business world. You have to have sponsors writing checks to the stations or newspaper or they will eventually go bankrupt. Without the sponsors, a news company can’t remain competitive. It’s like the article “Taking Care of Business” says “You’ve got to make money in order to produce good journalism.” That is true more than ever before in society today.

Though credibility will always be in question as long as newspapers and news stations have sponsors, it has become the way of survival and as long as the separation can remain apparent to the readers and viewers credibility is attainable.