Public relations agencies may receive an unusual request from freelance writers. The writers offer to include their clients in the freelancers’ articles for a fee.
British PR firm Rich Leigh and Company told Forbes last year that one of its freelance writers requested £300 ($400) to mention a client in an article. The writer told him Forbes pays a very small sum “which doesn’t stretch far.” The magazine later announced that it terminated the writer after an investigation.
“As a PR company you would expect us to want coverage for our clients, but I want it to be on merit,” agency founder Rich Leigh told The Guardian. “I can’t say it’s indicative of the shifting media landscape but at the same time there is something about it that is definitely not right. Maybe it’s another nail in the coffin of objective reporting.”
A Growing Trend?
Leigh said he’s concerned that the practice is proliferating and that some PR agencies will pay writers for media mentions. Other PR pros said that freelance writers have asked them to pay include clients in their articles.
The practice of secretly paying writers for mentions may be more common that many realize, according to an article in The Outline. Four contributing writers to publications including Mashable, Inc., Business Insider, and Entrepreneur told The Outline they’ve been paid to include promotional references to brands in their stories. The mentions seem natural. Writers may cite companies as case studies or mention them in unrelated stories.
Forbes took down about half a dozen articles by one contributor as well as his writer’s bio after someone revealed he had been promoting his own PR clients in his published work. “Forbes did the right thing,” he told The Outline. “I am lucky that I got to learn my lesson early on in my career as a writer and as a PR practitioner.”
The practice amounts to bribery. It’s a form of payola, payments DJs once received to play records of certain artists. Eventually, DJs were fired for payola and music promoters ended the practice. Publicists and writers who take payments for mentions risk destroying their reputations and careers. PR agencies or companies who agree to pay them support the unscrupulous tactic.
Publishers state adamantly that requesting or accepting payments for media mentions violates their policies and writers’ contracts. They will promptly terminate writers and remove their work from their websites if they violate the policy, because it undercuts journalistic integrity. Some ask PR firms to report writers who request payments. Besides terminating the contributor, the publication may alert editors at other publications where the person writes.
The Cause of the Problem
The publishers’ content production model may be the root of the problem. Many high-volume sites, including the Huffington Post, Entrepreneur and Forbes, maintain networks of unpaid contributors who publish large amounts of material. The media outlets pay outside contributors little or nothing for content.
Some contributors are entrepreneurs who run their own businesses and gain name recognition and an SEO boost that helps promote their businesses. Others are freelance writers and bloggers who struggle to make a living from the publishers’ meager payments. Some media outlets enforce little editing oversight over their publishing platforms.
The system has allowed an array of players including publicists, digital marketing outfits and others to pay writers to mention clients in publications ranging from The New York Times and Fast Company to small technology blogs.
Publications may post disclaimers along the lines of “Views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of this publication.” But readers generally ignore the disclaimers. Even if articles read like opinion pieces, they are treated like traditional news reports, as the Columbia Journalism Review notes. Some even appear in Google News.
PR agencies and their clients can and should support journalistic integrity. Ethical PR practitioners can and should put an end to the practice of paying for media mentions simply by refusing to pay, telling the writer why, and reporting the writer to the publisher.
Bottom Line: PR professionals may be shocked when writers request a fee to mention clients in articles, but paying for media mentions has become alarmingly common. The practice denigrates the value of legitimate media mentions. PR agencies can counter the practice by promptly reporting the improper requests to publishers.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
