The Ethics of the 'SI' Swimsuit Issue

Did Sports Illustrated cut costs on its annual swimsuit issue with a journalistically shady deal? That's the implication of an item in yesterday's Cindy Adams column -- but the magazine says it's not true.

Adams claims SI got a sweetheart deal from the Israeli tourism bureau, which paid half the airfare to fly a crew of 17 to the Holy Land for a photo shoot with hot sabra Bar Rafaeli. It wouldn't be the first time the Israeli government reached out to an American magazine to promote travel; Maxim featured a "Women of the Israeli Defense Forces" spread in its July issue.

From a purist standpoint, letting a third party pick up part of the tab for a photo shoot is definitely a no-no. In its ethics guidelines, the Society of Professional Journalist warns members to "refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment...if they compromise journalistic integrity."

Of course, whether a photographer shooting swimsuit models is involved in a journalistic enterprise in any sense is an open question. "The whole swimsuit issue is such a shameless departure from the type of journalism SI does each week, it defies explanation and I wouldn't treat anything in the issue seriously," says Andy Schotz, chairman of SPJ's ethics committee.

"My own feeling is that it's primarily entertainment and doesn't even attempt to display integrity," says Fred Brown, vice chairman of the committee. "Other stuff, perhaps, but not integrity."

But Bob Steele, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, says letting a tourism bureau underwrite a swimsuit issue shoot could be the start of a "slippery slope."

"What if, instead, it had to do with the Olympic venues in China?" he asks. "What if it was a photo shoot on a college campus having to do with a new athletic arena? You can imagine the 'what ifs' that take it from something seemingly as innocuous as a swimsuit issue into a controversial sports venue where the stakes are much greater and the journalism element much clearer."

The whole issue is moot, however, according to an SI spokesman, who says Adams mischaracterized the arrangement behind the shoot. "Because it was a large group, our travel party used a corporate media rate that's standard practice for all media companies," he says. Neither the Israeli tourism office nor anyone else chipped in, he adds.