Archive for September 18th, 2009

A recent story in the New York Times divulges that a number of drug companies have been paying freelance writers to write promotional articles about their products. Medical journals, called on the carpet by U.S. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) have begun to reluctantly comply with demands that they check for conflict of interest among their writers.

I have to say I was quietly both disguested at the behavior and aware that I had perhaps left workaday magazine journalism just in time. Before I gave up freelancing, I saw ads from drug companies seeking writers to write about their products, and wondered if that wasn’t a conflict of interest. Even in my own areas of writing, including horsemanship and lifestyle,it had because increasingly clear that magazines were creating content designed to promote advertiser’s products and not to serve the readers.

Some writers were surviviing last year only by being willing to write anything for anybody, including promotional materials cloaked as journalism and press releases and other PR projects,  to keep in the “journalism” career track. At the time I felt the magazine publishers’ clouding of ethics was part of the reason I was finding it harder and harder to get the kind of writing jobs I wanted, and it did influence my decision concentrate most of my energy on becoming a school teacher instead.

I wonder where we will find our true “free press” in the future. The New York Times is gamely hanging on, and I wish them well. This article is the kind of project they need to be doing, and I thank them for bringing these matters to light.