Asbury Park Press Executive Editor Hollis Towns (left) says publishing stories written by a New Jersey Devils employee is OK, because readers are told that writer Eric Marin is an employee of the professional hockey team.But that disclosure occurs unevenly, I found in a review of stories on the paper's website. Just two of the six Marin stories that I identified say explicitly that he works for the team; a third says only that Marin writes for the team's website. As I post this, the other stories failing to disclose he's an employee are here, here and here.
Towns's position on the ethics of publishing Marin's stories earned the paper a rebuke today from the Society of Professional Journalists, which compared the stories to "glorified press releases." Towns had told The New York Times: "I think journalists get hung up on certain lines of what's ethical more than the readers."
On the issue of attribution, SPJ said in a statement: "An Internet search shows that the Asbury Park Press ran Devils stories by Eric Marin, a Devils employee, with the label 'Special to the Asbury Park Press' or 'Special to the Press' or 'correspondent.' Other Gannett newspapers used the same 'Special' designation, which is commonly used for work by freelancers or stringers."
The statement continues: "When the Times's story exposed the newspaper's hidden relationship with the team, the papers added a tag line: 'Eric Marin works for the New Jersey Devils and writes for newjerseydevils.com.'"
As I found today, however, those additions didn't occur on every story.
[Photo: Park Press via NYT]
The pre-Gannett Asbury Park Press was one of the best newspapers in New Jersey. That's still the case, but only because Gannett has bought up so many newspapers in the state and lowered the bar to ground level. Towns is just another in a string of Gannett managers whose goal is to cash the bonus check, journalistic ethics and quality be damned.
ReplyDeleteWe all know why Towns is where his is. Lets not kid ourselves.
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