shakran

I somehow missed this.

Most of us are held to disclosure regulations. We're required to disclose to our company any gifts, etc, we received (and kept) over the past year that are related to our jobs. Basically, if your disclosure sheet isn't blank, and you don't have a VERY good reason for it not being blank, you're in a LOT of hot water.

Some stations go even further and require you to disclose gifts you received but did not keep. My current station does that and it's honestly a pain in the ass because someone's always sending journo's gifts. Most of the time those gifts aren't meant to influence coverage - it'll be something like a box of donuts because they thought you did a really good job on the story. They're not trying to compromise our ethics, and quite frankly there aren't many journalists who would change a negative story to a positive one because someone sent him a few krispy kremes, but even still, we don't keep 'em. There's a food kitchen down the street from my station and any food gifts go there. Other types of gifts are returned or thrown away.


Of course, this whole disclosure thing gets right back to the initial problem. A journalist on the take isn't gonna admit it in a disclosure form, unless he's a true idiot. So we're back to the having to trust the journo until he proves untrustworthy. And trust me, that's scary as HELL when that new reporter shows up in the newsroom, because if a reporter breaks that trust, he's not only hurt his relationship with the rest of the staff, but he's hurt the station's reputation with the community.