Journalist Cory Hutchins publishes a regular email newsletter focused on the changing state of journalism in Colorado… the day to day ethical issues facing reporters… the acquisition of traditional local newspapers by large conglomerates that might be more interested in profits than in community service… the conflicts between government and the media regarding transparency and the public’s ‘right to know’…
Mr. Hutchins’ most recent report came with this heading:
Why a dozen newspapers ran PR content about the people running our elections
From that article:
Following a chaotic election meltdown by a state Democratic Party that left The Associated Press unable to declare a winner of the Iowa caucuses, reporting turned to how smoothly — or not — subsequent state primaries might go.
Here in Colorado, with ballots already in the mail, we’re having the first statewide presidential election on Super Tuesday as a primary instead of a caucus under a new system. Voters approved the new laws in 2016 that switched Colorado from a caucus system to a primary that allows unaffiliated voters to participate when they previously could not. In Colorado, a party won’t run it; elected clerks in the state’s 64 counties will run their own elections under these new changes.
That brings us to how some of the state’s smallest local newspapers provided their readers information about the people running their elections. Last week, more than a dozen papers scattered across Colorado ran items about their county clerk. But it wasn’t enterprise reporting by a journalist at each paper who penned the stories. Instead, the pieces were produced by a former reporter, Lynn Bartels, who is now in the public relations business and handles communications for the Colorado County Clerks Association — the organization that represents them. “Yes, this article was printed as news,” an editor at one small rural paper told me when I asked, while adding the editor was “somewhat puzzled” as to why I was interested. “The article ran in print on the front page of the paper,” said another, and a third told me the item was printed as news “in the A section.”
Mr. Hutchins noted that, as Colorado newspapers continue to downsize in the struggle to survive in a digitally-driven world, it becomes more and more tempting to print “promotional” PR submissions as if they were “objective” news articles, especially when they are “personalized” for each community by including a quote from a local official or personality. Papers that ran Ms. Bartels included The Limon Leader, The Burlington Record, The Cañon City Daily Record, The Dove Creek Press, The Sterling Journal Advocate, The South Platte Sentinel, The Pagosa Springs SUN, The Weekly Register Call, The Alamosa News, The Fort Morgan Times, The Stratton Spotlight, The Pikes Peak Courier, and The La Junta Tribune-Democrat.
Presumably, none of these smaller newspapers were able to send their own reporters to cover the County Clerks Association convention.
Here’s the disclosure that appeared at the end of most, but not all, of the printed news stories:
Lynn Bartels was a reporter for 35 years, including for The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News, before serving as the spokeswoman for Secretary of State Wayne Williams. She now does communications consulting; one of her clients is the Colorado County Clerks Association. She also writes a weekly column for Colorado Politics, and some of the material in this story also appeared in her column.
At least one editor, Michael Alcala at The Cañon City Daily Record, told Hutchins that the paper should have run this disclosure, and not doing so was an oversight.
From Mr. Hutchins article:
Another outlet that ran the item without a disclosure, The Pagosa Sun, did so, said editor Terri House, because “we typically cut off promotional paragraphs about the writer and their credentials from press releases, but they have a byline.” She added: “We recognize most press releases we receive are meant to make someone or something look good and are written by paid staff or volunteers, and we edit as necessary to keep it newsworthy and appropriate for our publication.” The Pagosa Sun is a fully-staffed paper and not shorthanded, the editor added. “However, there is always outside content presented to us that we run if it involves locals and is newsworthy.”
Mr. Hutchins’ op-ed got me thinking about the Pagosa Daily Post, because 90% of the non-opinion articles we share with our readers are sent to us as press releases, and many are no doubt written by paid PR specialists, promoting their clients. We make an effort to identify those writers whenever possible — but as Mr. Hutchins suggests, identifying a “promotional” article written by a PR specialist is particularly important when the subject of the article is an elected official….especially if the article serves to promote someone who might be seeking our vote in a future election.
Mr. Hutchins’ summarized a similar concern.
My question would be whether the newspapers running this kind of thing, especially as news and not opinion and without disclosures, are thinking it through completely when they do. Because not to put too fine a point on it, but these elected politicians are the people running our elections. So when news outlets cover those powerful local leaders in the future, doing so independently or not is a choice they can make…
As one editor who ran the item as news told me during my reporting on this, “Yes, I think you are nitpicking.” I’m open to that criticism and would love to get your take on it as a reader or someone involved in the local news industry.