The New Media Ethics: Will Money Speak Louder?

It may not feel like it at the moment, but the recession plaguing the media industry will eventually lift. By the time it does, however, traditional conceptions of journalistic integrity may have permanently mutated.

Media institutions and the people who work at them alike are under unprecedented financial pressure, and it's causing them to reevaluate long-held assumptions about how insulated business aims ought to be from editorial concerns. Two examples of this in the news today: former MSNBC host Dan Abrams's new consultancy, and the magazine industry's moves toward opening up covers to advertising.

Abrams is building a business on the premise that clients can benefit from picking the brains of professional journalists for strategic insights and branding intelligence. He's been criticized in some quarters for using journalists in a way that turns them into something approaching marketing or PR types. He tells BusinessWeek's Jon Fine he's being careful to avoid overt conflicts of interest and is only hiring ex-journos. But there are plenty of people out there who are "former" journalists only by circumstance, not intention; is a laid-off reporter who hopes someday to work again at a newspaper "former" enough for Abrams's purposes? What about one who has given up on the idea of journalism as a full-time career but continues to freelance? What about one who contributes free reporting and insights to the Huffington Post or the Daily Beast?

As I've written before, the changing economics of the news business are likely to bring about a mass de-professionalization of journalism. Fewer and fewer are going to be able to earn a solid middle-class or upper-middle-class income from reporting, writing and editing alone; more and more will supplement their income with other kinds of work -- perhaps by creating advertorial content for marketers, or by taking consulting gigs like the ones Abrams is handing out. And still more will never commit themselves fully to journalism in the first place but merely treat it as an upaid sideline or hobby.

What sorts of expectations will the journalistic establishment have for these people? As the case of Mayhill Fowler showed, plenty of the field's deep thinkers like Jeff Jarvis and Jay Rosen are willing to make allowances for amateur journalists and their non-traditional ways; indeed, they scoff at those who expect "citizen journalists" to behave as though they worked at The New York Times. (Fowler got major political scoops for the Huffington Post by, in essence, passing herself off as a supporter and concealing her reportorial intentions.) Will the same go for fully-trained professional journalists forced from the ranks of full-timers? Is someone who only spends 20 percent of his time on journalism only required to uphold 20 percent of the old rules?

It would be nice to think that, as the definition of what constitutes a working journalist grows ever squishier, the need for absolute transparency will assert itself more strongly than ever. Professionals who need to dabble in PR or advertising to pay the bills will list the parties they've accepted checks from on their personal websites or blogs; amateurs who solicit quotes or snap pictures with the goal of having them seen online will be open about their aims. Somehow, I doubt this is what we're headed for. When it comes to establishing norms, the top-down model of the old media universe may be superior to the bottom-up ethos that now prevails.

-----
Disclosure: As the Observer reported, Abrams approached me (among many others) earlier this year about working for him in a separate but related venture, a media-news website. Our conversation never went beyond a preliminary stage.