What would you do in this situation? Please weigh in with your responses.

The freelance writer
You're the editor of a trade association magazine that covers a particular industry. About six months ago, you found a wonderful freelance writer who pitches great story ideas, is enterprising in her reporting, turns in articles on deadline, charges a reasonable fee, and writes with unusual clarity and robustness. She has done three articles for you already, and you've assigned her another that she's currently working on.

While searching the Internet, you discover the writer's name as the contact person for a news release about a company she used as a source for one of your articles. Upon further searching, you discover her name on news releases on behalf of other companies and organizations. Many of these groups are sources or advertisers (or potential ones) for your magazine. The writer, it turns out, includes public relations work in her freelance business.

When you telephone her to discuss this, she responds that she had no idea this would be a problem (indeed, other editors are OK with it) and that she's careful not to intermingle her magazine article writing with her PR work. In the article she's now working on for you, she is using some sources that she happens to know through her PR work, but she insists their comments are crucial to the story.

Her article, slated for the next issue, is due in one week. What do you do, if anything?


Note: this scenario, based on real-life experiences, was developed by Ira Pilchen, editor, American Bar Association, and Tony Stasiek, editor, Scotsman Publishing Inc., for the 2006 ASBPE Editorial Conference. Visit www.asbpe.org/about/code.htm to read about the group's Code of Ethics.

I think first of all you need to weigh the subject matter of the story and ask the writer why the particular souces are so crucial. I require my freelancers to submit along with the finished article any and all sources used with contact info so I can follow up and fact check. Depending on the subject matter and my grasp of it, I also utilize my editorial advisory board to occasionally peer review ideas or articles to help me ensure accuracy and relevancy. Of course, the one week deadline doesn't help matters ... basically you need to trust your gut. If something smells rotten in Denmark, then kill it. If you don't have a safety net article in the queue to fill the space, then you have some other management issues you need to address.

You kill the story, pay the writer a kill fee (or for the whole story, whatever your contract with her calls for), and don't work with her again. This one's easy. I'm flabbergasted that other editors (in the scenario) are fine with it, but I certainly wouldn't be. Would it be OK if a staff writer was also working on the weekends for the one of the companies he covers? I mean, come on -- you don't really get a more clear cut conflict of interest.

Given the pay scales for free-lance writers and PR flacks, this practice is undoubtedly widespread. And finding good, well-connected writers is difficult. What is needed are guidelines addressing such instances, rules the writer must follow (or lose any compensation), editorial involvement in who is interviewed on the front end, and fact-checking on the back end to ensure lines have not been crossed.