SB> favorably on advertiser's products. The editorial side of magazine SB> publishing is merging, so to speak, with the advertising side. It's gotten [...] SB> Don't ever believe what you read in newspapers and magazines.
Hi Shel, as an originator of the thread, I took the libery to change the subject to more reflect the interesting discussion that is evolving here. Working as a freelancer for some magazines and newspapers made me loose quite a lot of ideals I had. Actually, it is pretty hard to survive for a mag. I have in general nothing against the editors, as there is a HUGE pressure from the owner of the paper. And I as a photographer must sometimes do photographs that are, not dishonest, but depicting the photographed in a view that is the magazine's. I try to avoid this, mostly, but sometimes it's just hard making a living. Still, I think (hope) I have goods standards of journalist (moral) integrity. We had a pretty good people for it in the school. You should see the tabloids here though :-( That an owner pushes his view onto the editors is very widespread. Consider Murdoch, Berlusconi, etc. Fortunately, the one magazine I photograph for on a more regular basis has very good editors, who are absolutely against PR type articles, even though it's a magazine type where such things are almost excepted. Mostly, the worst such articles are in "living style" magazines, from pharmaceutical companies. Really ugly PR. And of course magazines/papers issued by a city or town hall. That's not even journalism. In our country, we have of course a federation of journalist, Syndicate, who should condone such things, and sometime does. But it is not that efficient. That could be quite an interesting discussion. What about other journalists here? Cotty, how about TV in the UK? Best regards, Frantisek Vlcek
