New York Times Public Editor Unfairly Addresses Freelancer Ethics Again

by Joe Coscarelli | 9:27 am, January 3rd, 2010

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Last week, we told you about Harvard Business School professor and New York Times freelancer Prof. Mary Tripsas, who watchdog blog NYTPicker busted in an ethical pickle. Tripsas praised a company in her column which had just recently paid for her trip and accommodations to their headquarters, directly in violation of Times rules. This Sunday, public editor Clark Hoyt took on the issue (again): “Tripsas violated a policy against accepting travel or anything else of value from the subjects of coverage,” he writes. “She will no longer be writing for The Times.”

The column’s title says it all really: “Times Standards, Staffers or Not.” In short, the paper will enforce the same rules on freelancers as it does on better paid staff members, despite the fact that the ethical guidelines are often antithetical to the unstable life of a freelance writer and may complicate one’s ability to do work elsewhere.

Whether it’s free travel or all-expense-paid press junkets, writers just scraping by are prone to accept any favors that will make their job or financial life easier, but that just will not work according to Hoyt:

These cases illustrate how hard it is for The Times to ensure that freelancers, who contribute a substantial portion of the paper’s content, abide by ethics guidelines that editors believe are self-evident and essential to the paper’s credibility but that writers sometimes don’t think about, or don’t think apply to their circumstances, or believe are unfair or unrealistic. Some writers do not read the guidelines carefully, and although they are encouraged to raise possible conflicts of interest with an editor, some don’t tell and are not asked.

The story of recently fired Times freelancer Joshua Robinson, just two years out of college, illustrates the conundrum perfectly. Robinson was fired for using his affiliation at the paper to score free airline tickets that he needed for an independent project. According to Hoyt, “He said he called himself ‘a reporter for The New York Times’ — which he is not — only to establish his ‘street cred’ with those he was soliciting, and not to imply he was on the newspaper staff.”

In other words: because the struggling paper relies so heavily on freelancers (meaning no salary or benefits for many Times contributors), they are required to do additional work elsewhere, even though it may affect their employment with the Times. But if you count the number of contributors who have run into similar ethical issues lately (Mike Albo comes to mind), then maybe the writers have weighed their options and trying to get away with something is worth it in an “every man for himself” world. Maybe it’s the paper being unrealistic and unfair.

“The paper wants to treat freelancers like staffers without the same pay or benefits, and without paying for their research,” one former columnist said. Times editors contend that “the most important consideration is that everything in the newspaper, no matter who produces it, must be free of even the smallest hint of undue influence,” while Hoyt suggests that writers keep slipping up because of the complicated guidelines.

But it seems pretty simple: pay them or let them fly.

Times Standards, Staffers or Not [New York Times]

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Floorplay

An almost-octogenarian who’s had 23 (not jobs, but) distinct, full-fledged, careers, I empathize with anyone’s struggle to put bread on their table. I’ve been on both ends of the, for me solely enlightening, conflict-of-interest conundrum. This article brings to mind a lunch date I, as an inchoate, professional actor, had with a NY Times reporter.

I’d prepared a mid-summer promotion package the headline to the press release read, “INVITES 800 FOR COCKTAILS AT MAUDE’S TO CELEBRATE FIRST ANNIVERSARY AS NY ACTOR.” Then hand-delivered to one-hundred selected local and national, Manhattan-based reporters, a sealed box holding the release, a Maude’s (former Summit Hotel restaurant-bar) napkin, cocktail stirrer, matchbook and plastic cocktail glass.

Lest you believe it was a “pianola,” think again. One day after delivery, I telephoned each recipient. To my chagrin, half claimed they hadn’t received my package. Whereupon I created and delivered another 60, conceding, “That’s IT! No matter what.”

Functionally-illiterate from birth until my late twenties, and at 78 still a seriously-inhibited dyslexic, yet voraciously-curious, only occasionally had I treated myself to the New York TIMES. Although I recognized a few by name, I was by no means what you might call, familiar, with more than three or four of its writers.

One was the late Judy Klemsrud. I was especially taken by Judy’s laid-back, heavily-nuanced, mid-western approach to people. It was, to say the least, a thrill for me, despite my 45 years and being a former marketing executive. One year into the acting profession I’d reached on the telephone, one of my favorite writers.

Moreover, she would join me for lunch. And, although she had to postpone it three times, fate couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate day. It was to be that day’s “event.” Nothing else doing. Neither an audition nor job. For the next 7 days I would anticipate that event. We were to meet, and we did, at the restaurant in the former Allied Chemical Building, Broadway and 42nd Street, Manhattan.

To complicate the week, yet make it decidedly more delicious, that very afternoon when Judy and I finalized our lunch date, I got and auditioned, last minute, for a Met Life TV commercial. And a call back for the next day. Then a booking: for the day preceding my lunch date with Judy. In the New Jersey hinterlands.
“Wonderful!” I thought. “Always good for folks to see an actor’s busy. More to talk about at lunch.”

Several months earlier, talent agent, the late Joel Pitt, had called me in to read and sing for him. As actors hear routinely, Joel complimented my work, saying, “Thanks, I’ll be in touch.”

“Sure, Joel, just as we hear all the time. Then nothing.”

But, as he walked me to his office door, he winked and said, “I mean it. I’m going to work to get you auditions.” Sure enough, a couple months later, he called to ask, “Have you seen the new musical, ANNIE?” Not only had I not seen it, I’d not heard of it. Thinking I had slim chances of landing a paying theatrical gig (I’d never had one, despite what my resume said), I’d paid scant attention to any such opportunities.

“This very minute go buy a standing room ticket for tonight. I’m putting you up for (a principal role) in the first national touring company.”

Indeed, my youngest son was in town with me. We both attended.

Months went by without a word

Fast forward to the Met Life TV commercial, perhaps the nastiest weather day possible: rain, snow, sleet, damp, chilled to the bone. As was the building in which the commercial would be shot. About 2 o’clock I checked, routinely, with my answering service. “Where ARE you? Joel Pitt’s going out of his mind trying to reach you.”

“Hello, Mr. Pitt. Understand you’ve been trying to reach me.”

“Going crazy is more like it. Your audition for ANNIE is tomorrow. 2 PM, backstage, at the Alvin.”

And, I conjured, my lunch date with Judy at 12:30. “Oh, merde. Gotta rush that long-awaited lunch.”

So long-awaited that it was almost nostalgic, anti-climactic. Our conversation was more like between close friends. Judy seemed utterly delighted with my recent, multiple, successes. Our business and lunch easily concluded within an hour, Judy was probably just as happy to get back to work as I was to dash off to the Alvin. Yet, not once had I felt hurried.

My only disappointment was that, when I pulled out my American Express Gold card to pay the bill, Judy did likewise. “We can’t accept any gifts.” Try as I might to change her mind, I couldn’t.

No question: that was a good lesson. It gave me even greater confidence that what Times writers wrote was the Times, unfettered, judgment.