Laurel to the ethics committee of the Society of Professional Journalists, for refusing to tie the knot without a proper pre-nup. Last August, in apparent recognition of the ever-intensifying relationship between journalism and public relations, the SPJ’s president, Christine Tatum, appeared at a national ethics committee meeting at the annual convention and pressed the committee to give its blessing to a most immodest proposal–a revenue-enhancing arrangement between SPJ and Market Wire, an outfit that distributes press releases, video news releases, and the like. In its preliminary form, the proposal called for the “partners” to develop a series of training programs whereby professional journalists would, for a fee, impart pearls of wisdom to PR practitioners “on how to better understand and work with journalists.” Some committee members, however, balked, objecting to certain terms of the proposal they deemed contrary to SPJ’s cherished code of ethics–among them, sharing the development of the curriculum, displaying each other’s logos on their respective Web sites, allowing Market Wire to send e-mail ads to SPJ members, promoting Market Wire to new members and students, and making Market Wire the exclusive newswire for SPJ. After that memorably contentious meeting, the committee sent a forceful letter to the national board and, on the basis of its recommendations, those impediments were altered sufficiently for most of its members to live with; in December, the engagement was officially announced. (Tellingly, not a word of this controversy has appeared in the organization’s magazine, Quill, including a letter to the editor from a former committee member explaining why she was divorcing herself on ethical grounds from the Society of Professional Journalists.)

Dart to NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams, for solipsistic journalism. In each of the first five segments of “Trading Places”– a highly hyped “in depth” sweeps series on...

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