The New York Post payolagate/Page Six-gate scandal continues. In my country, Israel, taking "payola" is an established tradition -- to my continuing sorrow.
When I first took a job at an Israeli newspaper after emigrating here from the U.S., I was astonished to see senior editors dole out plum assignments (such as junkets to Greece, Turkey, Europe, Eilat resort hotels) to favored writers. It was a way for editors, also, to get reporters to curry favor with them, which I also found distasteful (which was probably why I was not offered any junkets).
This was excused as being one way to compensate poorly paid journalists (don't ask: <$2,000 a month is standard for working journalists, and some get even closer to Israeli minimum wage, which is <$1,000). And some papers -- only some -- had the honesty (at least) to say at the end of the article that the writer was a guest of such and such airline, hotel and travel agency. Even if the articles were not always so positive, 99% of them would not have been written had the company/organization not given a junket. Rarely -- never, in fact -- was "news" committed.
So our American cousins aren't any better. That doesn't make me feel any better. Just worse.
Now that I have my own content development company I am being asked by Israeli businesses to write articles about them and get them placed in publications. And they don't see anything wrong with paying me to do that.
Sorry, I don't do that, even if it will cost me money. I need to retain a shred of my journalistic independence and objectivity.
