Venting about vendors

I just walked out of a fascinating (perhaps “heated” is a better word) meeting with our editorial team. The topic: vendors.

In the world of the trade press, vendors—those people and businesses that sell products to readers—are both a blessing and a curse. They’re a blessing in that they provide the bulk of traditional advertising revenue. They’re a curse because they control the purse strings and thus often have a frightening amount of influence on your content.

Fortunately, our company president has repeatedly told us never to let revenue concerns impact the quality of our content. He believes, as does every optimistic journalist, that good reporting and editing will draw eyeballs like bees on honey—and advertisers will come clamoring after.

As reassuring as our president is though, our team can’t help but feel pressured (if only self-consciously) to drive revenue to the bottom line. We’ve got a good gig, but we don’t have a free pass.

Which brings us to that meeting … We received a query from a vendor who asked if he could submit content. We’ve always maintained a vendor-free policy for our website. We don’t ever include vendors as sources, and we certainly wouldn’t publish a submitted column.

But what if it serves the reader? Vendors often boast expertise in relevant fields of coverage, so why wouldn’t we pursue the best possible source if it made for the best possible content?

Thus far in our young, two-year history, we’ve perhaps sacrificed what’s best for our readers and have fallen on the side of credibility. By avoiding vendors, our readers never think twice or assume we operate under a pay-to-play business model where vendors can buy their ways into articles by purchasing ads or sponsorship packages. As such, readers know our content is unbiased. Credibility might be more a matter of perception than practice, but it’s an important matter nonetheless.

Not everyone agreed whole-heartedly with this argument. One of my colleagues—a new but savvy hire—made an interesting counter argument. He asked if we think twice when we see sources from major manufacturing or technology companies interviewed in CNN or The Wall Street Journal. No, he argued; venerable institutions use editorial judgment to weed out self-promoting bias from sources to deliver only the most relevant information. Doing so fosters a relationship of trust between news outlet and reader—one that ultimately allows for delivery of the most pertinent news, no matter from where it’s sourced.

Besides, he continued, developing a black-and-white policy on the issue is akin to painting oneself into a corner; there might be articles or revenue-generating opportunities in the future that we’d miss because of obstinate thinking.

So what’s the answer? I wish I could tell you. We weren’t able to reach consensus—and that’s OK for the time being. This is a big issue, and one that deserves more consideration than a 45-minute meeting allows.

If our discussions in this course have taught me anything, it’s that ethical decisions making takes time and reflection. Here’s hoping that when we do chart our course of action we choose the best “right.”