Bigger Pockets Means Bigger Issues

Cait Williams

cw699619@ohio.edu

Money, relationships and their cost

   For this blog post, I want to talk about checkbook journalism. Checkbook journalism is the practice of news outlets and journalists paying sources for information. Checkbook journalism, though usually not called that, is typically talked about in some aspect within ethics codes. Ethics codes warn about paying any source for information. Payments which may involve money, but also concern any kind of exchange for source material. It's unethical for several reasons. It creates incentives for people to sell stories instead of just coming forward, it may cause a disadvantage for news networks that lack funds to pay sources, and it can lead to questionable credibility of the source and network. However, does that mean that all compensation for people who speak with journalists is unethical? 

   In an article by Robert Boynton for the Columbia Journalism Review, he explores checkbook journalism a little more in depth. In his writing he discusses instances where subjects were compensated by journalists and why those instances may have not been as morally unsound as it may seem. In several of the stories, subjects had agreed to speak without being offered compensation in the start, but had been paid after the writer felt indebted to their subject. In one instance during the article, Boynton references the writer John Krakauer. Krakauer wrote Into Thin Air, a book that chronicles the fatal story of eight climbers who died while trying to summit Mt.Everest. Krakauer insisted that after writing his book the subjects be compensated for their contributions. The people involved in his book had been through horrendous pain and loss, but had been willing to talk about it for the sake of his book. In another story in the article, Boynton writes about Alex Kotlowitz, a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Kotlowitz spoke to him about a story he had done where his subject was a poor African-American family. After covering the family for 2 years, Kotlowitz began to feel a connection to them. A situation that had begun as strictly business had become blurred, not because of money, but because of human emotion. I think this is the aspect of checkbook journalism that intrigued me most. In examples like the above 2, it seems that the unethical issue was not that subjects had been compensated, but that a relationship had formed between the writer and their subject. 

National Library of New Zealand

   In an article for Propublica, Steve Mills writes about the difficulties journalists face when it comes to having professional relationships with sources, while also having to discuss deep and personal issues. I enjoyed reading both articles that I mention here because they take an issue that looks relatively black and white and exposes how easy it is to actually fall into. Checkbook journalism may be something that a journalist does not intentionally take part in, but may accidentally be implicated in when they become to close to sources. It is certainly an issue that journalists need to be weary of when they consider giving any kind of compensation to subjects, even when they do not intend for it to be used to improve their story or quality of information they are receiving. I felt inclined to brush this subject off because it felt simple to avoid, but I think doing that would be irresponsible. I would caution anyone going into journalism to think twice about this topic.