The Great American Freebie Debate
By Andrew Guy Jr.
Houston Chronicle

St. Petersburg, Fla. Sept. 18 -- The Krispy Kreme donuts arrive daily, hot and dripping with grease and sin. Not just the sin of calories, but also the sin of possible ethics violations.

What to do when national food chains send dozens of goodies to the features department, promoting the opening of a local shop? Should the donuts be tossed? Eaten? Bundled and carted off to the local shelter for the homeless? And who has the time to deliver dozens of donuts to the needy?

Ethical questions are not new in newspapers. For years journalists have struggled with ethical issues large and small, from whether to investigate potential advertisers to whether a CD should be added to a writer's personal collection.

But high-profile ethics violations at the New York Times in the last year involving reporters Jayson Blair and Rick Bragg have underscored the need to be clear about acceptable practices in newsrooms, from freebies to bylines to taglines.

So says Kelly McBride, of the Poynter Institute, who led a panel on ethics at the 57th annual AASFE convention in St. Petersburg Beach, Fla., recently.

"We say we don't take freebies, but when the Cheesecake Factory opens, they send over six cheesecakes, and we have the plates and forks out and we're all ready to go," said McBride, who said she has a hard-and-fast rule about freebies: Take nothing. Ever.

Not a book from the publishing house touting an author's latest.

Not the CD.

Nada.

"I'm a purist," McBride said. "Once you start moving the issue around, you open the door (for possible violations) and can't close it."

But her arguments didn't quite jibe with editors in attendance, many of whom felt McBride was being unrealistic and impractical.

"You're talking about fundamentalism," said Ray Mark Rinaldi, assistant managing editor/features and arts & entertainment at The Denver Post. "The assumption is that a reporter will definitely do something wrong if he eats a donut. It's not that stringent."

Perhaps not, McBride argued. But one donut can lead to other indiscretions, which can lead to a newspaper having to deal with reporters regularly crossing the line. One of the problems, McBride said, is that most newspapers don't have written ethics policies. And those that do have policies that are vague or outdated.

While most reporters and editors understand gross ethics violations are unacceptable, it's the little things -- like the donuts and free books -- that put papers on the slippery slope toward larger problems, she added.

Good ethics policies, McBride said, should:

• Start with a statement of values. Those values should include mention the words credibility and independence.
• State guidelines and outline to whom they apply. Should the policy apply to only full-time staffers? What about freelancers? It's important to be clear, McBride said.
• Create a model for exceptions. There will always be cases where exceptions should be made. Those exceptions should be outlined in the policy, McBride said.
• Suggest alternatives. If the donuts come to the office, should they be taken to a homeless shelter? Should newspapers pay for sportswriters to eat with the team? What, if anything, should be disclosed to the reader?

Many editors were still not convinced that McBride's hard-and-fast policy ideas were practical, or necessary. They continued to debate and banter back and forth with McBride, who admitted after the seminar that while she has studied ethical issues for years, this was her first presentation on the subject.

Andrew Guy Jr., a 2003 AASFE convention fellow, is a feature writer at The Houston Chronicle. He can be reached by e-mail at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .