Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Old Style
This article condemns the payment of journalists in China to run one's news. It's old style publicity. Modern publicity started at the end of the 1800s and beginning of the 20th Century with agents who paid local editors to run news stories about the wonderful new invention, the telephone. Editors and reporters were given gifts and money during the holidays right up to the 1970s when post-Watergate news organizations put an end to such remuneration. It smacks of the immaturity of the Chinese news organizations that they tolerate such behavior and perhaps, even encourage it because of the low wages they pay reporters. There is no way of knowing when Chinese media will walk away from the red envelope and meanwhile corporations have to get their news out in some way. So, they pay. Earned media becomes bought and paid for news coverage, an ethical dilemma.
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