Vancouver Sun Olympics reporter writes for Olympics promotional magazine
The Tyee in Vancouver has reported that the Vancouver Sun's lead reporter on the Olympics, Jeff Lee, freelanced an article to the Olympics promotional magazine, Olympic Review. "Feeling the Buzz" appeared in the January-February-March issue of the Review, which is billed as the "offical publication of the Olympic movement". The 84 page magazine is published by the International Olympic Committee.Contacted by The Tyee, Lee said:
"I'm being paid for it, sure. I'm freelancing," said Lee. "I would hope nobody at The Tyee would suggest I've given them a free ride or this is a conflict....I don't see any point having a discussion about it at this point. I was waiting for you guys to call. Someone told me you were on this bullshit."Lee said that the Olympic Review is produced by a company under contract to the IOC, so the IOC was not paying him directly. He said he didn't remember what he was being paid. He was approached to write the piece, as were other reporters in other Olympic cities, he said.
"This is a common thing," he said. "If you go back and look at The Olympic Review for Olympics in the past, whether it was Torino, Athens or anywhere else, what they do is depend on a reporter who's in the area."He also said his editors at the Sun were aware of the story.
"I did clear this with my editors," he said. "My editors were advised I'd been asked to do this and nobody had any problem with it."The Tyee story notes that the Sun's parent company, Canwest Publishing Inc. is an official supplier to the Vancouver 2010 games (as are The Globe and Mail and La Presse.)
posted by D. B. Scott at
6:00 am
9 Comments:
So basically, everyone's been coopted by everyone else, and nobody should believe a word that anyone says. Right?
I don't see what the big deal is here.
It seems fairly clear. The readers of the Sun are not aware that the reporter they're reading is being paid on the side by the very people he is supposed to be covering objectively. It's called a conflict of interest. It would be the same as if a financial reporter was being paid to write for the Canadian Bankers Association or a medical reporter being paid to write press releases for a drug company. Disclosure is an important antidote to conflict of interest; a better antidote is not to work for both sides.
If anyone's interested, here are some of Jeff Lee's articles for the Sun: http://labs.daylife.com/journalist/jeff_lee . Seems pretty balanced on first glance.
Would have been nice of The Tyee to do some actual reporting in this article, e.g. interviews with editors at the Sun, at the Olympic review, a summary of the OR article, and a comment on the quality of his work at the Sun.
The issue is not Lee's reporting excellence so much as the perception of his being paid by the principal subject of his writing.
I suspect none of us know what "actual reporting" the Tyee did; so I've asked the Tyee to comment.
I'm not excusing Lee's actions. However, articles like this one from The Tyee can destroy careers.
It's important for people to get a complete picture of the role Lee plays in Vancouver media with respect to the Olympics, including exactly what he was paid by the VOC to do.
Not to turn this into a Tyee-busting comment ring, but the Tyee prints articles by campaign managers — veritable press releases presented as fact, not opinion, from people who are paid to persuade people to their side of things. THAT is a conflict of interest.
If conflict of interest is the issue here, is nobody bothered that Lee's editors at the Sun had no problem with the article? Do we hold writers to a higher standard than the publications who employ them?
And, out of curiosity, what is fair disclosure? I like this in theory, but have no idea what it looks like. A mention in Lee's Olympic Review byline that he writes for the Sun? A watermark on all of his future Olympics pieces in the Sun?
I haven't decided how I feel about Lee's actions -- my instinct is somewhat sympathetic -- but there are other questions to be asked.
And yet not having blind judging at the NMA's is zero concern for DB Scott?
Thanks for the interesting comments on Andrew MacLeod's Tyee piece.
To respond to Deanne: I'm not sure from your comment that you read the entire piece rather than the snipped summaries here. We did summarize what Mr. Lee said in his OR story, we did try and get comment from his editors at the Sun, who did not respond.
Mr. MacLeod did not suggest that Mr. Lee's Sun articles lack balance -- in fact, in the lead of the piece, he says that likely some of what Mr. Lee has written for the Sun did not please the IOC. And Chris Shaw, who is critical of the Olympics, is quoted saying that Mr. Lee has done some good reporting on the Olympics from his perspective (as well as some not so impressive to Shaw).
We will publish a follow-up with more comment from journalism ethics experts, and the Sun editors, if they respond to our requests.
I will say I'm surprised that some people on this board don't think it's worth reporting that the lead Olympics reporter for the paper of record in the host city, which is also and Olympics sponsor, agreed to take a fee to write for the IOC's promotional magazine.
How many magazine editors on this board would be concerned about at least the optics if they (or their readers) didn't know the freelance writer they assigned to write an investigative report also was taking a fee from the organization he or she was covering?
Should the Sun or any other news outlet have a policy on such instances or not? The story would seem to raise that question and I'd be very interested to hear the views of this community, members of which I know strive to do good work and also, necessarily, pay the bills.
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