Compromising position gives Doc a flashback

Free advice about free M&Ms on Air Force One

Dr. Ink offers advice, serious and humorous, to editors on a full range of problems and issues, journalistic and managerial. Questions may be real or hypothetical, and may be rephrased to protect personal or institutional privacy. Send them to Ask Dr. Ink, ASNE, 11690B Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA 20191.

Dear Good Doctor: Our TV critic feels compromised because he has to review the station owned by our company. He says when he writes anything negative about the sister station, the folks over there complain he is killing his own 401k. When he writes anything positive about the sister station, the folks at the other stations say he is talking the company line. I say tell it like it is and let the chips and 401k’s fend for themselves. Now that we are all in bed together, it’s getting a little uncomfortable.

Answer: This question, the dark side of convergence, reminds Dr. Ink of the time he was a little inkster playing shortstop on a Little League team, and his daddy, Big Inky, was drafted into being umpire. Dr. Ink hit the ball and ran to first base, beating the throw by a step: “Out!” He did it again, this time beating the throw by a step and a half: “Yer, Out!” yelled the umpire. The ride home was not a happy one, as the little inkster, ink drops rolling down his cheeks, challenged his pappy. “How could you do it?” Little Inky cried. “Since I’m your father,” he answered, “I was bending over backwards to look fair.”

This reader’s instinct is right on target. The TV critic should bend over backwards to look fair in the eyes of the community at large, and the only way to do that is to be tougher on the sister station than on the others.

Doc: President Clinton was invited to teach a class at the local law school, but the dean insisted it was all off the record and barred the media. Granted, he is no longer a public official, but he is talking about his work as a public official and it is a public university. Can we insist they at least allow the students to comment on his remarks?

Answer: The circumstances behind this question anger the usually placable (look it up!) Dr. Ink. He believes that reporters have the duty to fight for access to anything said by a former president anywhere on the campus of a public university.

The doc would like to prescribe a backbone injection to inoculate academic deans against the secrecy bug. The doctor wonders what would happen if a journalist forced the issue, standing outside the classroom to listen in at the door or to interview students. Let school officials try to use security to escort the reporter off campus. It’s an outrage.

Dear Dr. Ink: I was invited to ride on Air Force One and interview the president. It’s a great chance for a scoop, but I feel as if I am being spoon fed. Should I insist on paying for the flight? Are the free M&Ms off limits?

Answer: My guess is that free M&Ms — even a free hamburger and Dr. Pepper — would not inhibit this dutiful reporter from executing a fair and accurate account of the interview.

A far greater temptation would be the seduction of power, the good feeling that comes with flying high with the Leader of the Free World, that Cloud Nine sense of self-congratulation when the Prez claps you on the shoulder for the first time and gives you a nickname.

On the more technical issue of accepting freebies, the reporter should check with an editor.

The newspaper, no doubt, has a policy that covers free airplane trips for reporters under a variety of circumstances. If the paper lacks such a policy, it should use this case to draft one.

Dear Dr. Ink: We hear a lot about the need for leadership in journalism today. What would you advise an editor to do in today’s climate of tight money and busy readers?

Answer: The leaders of American journalism, both news leaders and business leaders, must begin to draw a thick line in the sand. That line must reveal the distinction between profit-making and profiteering. Unreasonable, even unconscionable demands for higher margins have already begun to hurt the news product and shrink service to readers.

News leaders must be assertive with business leaders, even at the risk of their own jobs. It’s a lot to ask, but moral leadership calls for such courage. Dr. Ink recently watched the movie “Gandhi” and it reminded him great leaders have met greater challenges than a rise in the price of newsprint.

Within the newsroom, the news leaders must remind themselves and others why they got into the news business in the first place. Such reminders will strengthen the resolve of rank and file reporters and editors, who need to be reassured that their leaders remember.

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