TV Charity Drives: Toys for Tots, Money for Stations

While ads promoting Channel 4's Project Harvest were airing last month, the station's reporters chatted up its sponsors in interview segments. Among those interviewed was D.C. Lottery Executive Director Jeanette A. Michael, who had appeared on the station in paid commercials about the pre-Thanksgiving event.

Copeland said that WRC's and WUSA's willingness to feature sponsors that way has "evolved." "We're in constant discussion with them about how we can all make it better," she said. "They'll propose and we'll propose. Someone will say, 'Let's have an interview on the 9 a.m. news,' or 'Let's run it during the 6 o'clock.' "

Copeland added: "There are things that Channel 9 will do that Channel 4 won't do. On Channel 9, you do get these live cut-ins or interviews, sometimes two. You'll get a camera crew to come to your branch and interview the president of the region. We'll do a taped interview and drop that into a news program."

Green acknowledged that his station's news department often covers Channel 9's charitable drives, but that it does so without prompting from the sales department. "There are times when the news department will decide on its own to push the charitable message," he said. "They can call [a sponsor] and schedule interviews when they want to."

An e-mail sent last month by one station executive to Channel 9's staff, however, suggests that advertising, promotion and news operations are highly coordinated. The e-mail, from Khalim Piankhi, vice president of community relations, notes that Channel 9 is again sponsoring the toy drive "in partnership" with SunTrust and Wal-Mart. The e-mail adds that the station has produced two full-screen graphics (with the sponsors' logos on them) and instructs the station's news department: "As often as possible, it is enough to just mention the drive with the [graphics] during our weather segments. We also would like to augment these 'mentions' with interviews with representatives of our partners." Piankhi declined to comment, referring a reporter to Green.

Channel 9 also has used one of its top anchors, Tracey Neale, to promote an advertiser's campaign. Neale appeared in commercials for the Children's National Medical Center "Get T.U.F.F." (Team Up for Fitness) program, which combats childhood obesity. A spokesman for the center said the hospital paid for the spots. Asked whether it was proper for a member of the news operation to endorse an advertiser on the air, Green replied: "Tracey wasn't promoting Children's; she was promoting the fight against childhood obesity. It's proper for her to get behind a program she feels passionate about."

One journalism ethics expert, Bob Steele of the St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Poynter Institute, said such coverage is "rife with ethical potholes and land mines" because it calls into question the stations' journalistic independence. News coverage "should not be unduly influenced by commercial considerations, or by developing revenue streams, or by maximizing ad dollars, or by pleasing our business clients," he said. "Those factors are illegitimate forces that will undermine journalistic credibility."

(A spokesman for The Washington Post, Eric Grant, said the newspaper sponsors events and accepts advertising from co-sponsors. "But we make it very clear that our sponsorship contains no promise of news coverage," he said. "At no time will we compromise our news coverage for the sake of a community event" or to favor an advertiser.)

Green and Jack said sponsors' purchases of commercial time provide the charity or campaign with additional publicity and promotion. The stations devote free airtime to the campaign, but the two executives said there is a limit to how much the stations can give away. Sponsors "enhance the message," Green said.

Jack said that if a sponsor doesn't step up to promote the station's campaign, the station will sell the airtime to a conventional advertiser. "Yes, we get some revenue," Jack said, "but the charity benefits, too."

Representatives of Channel 5 and Channel 7 said their stations do not sell commercials to promote station-sponsored fundraising campaigns because of the potential for viewer confusion (NewsChannel 8, the local all-news cable channel owned by the parent of WJLA, follows the same policy as Channel 7).

Dyer, of Channel 5, said that although his station's news department will cover events that the station is involved in, "we don't do it in exchange for anything other than whether it's good for the community. We try to approach these things cleanly." The other stations, he said, "have some disclosure issues that beg a little more conversation."

That is not exactly how some advertisers see it. Inova's Quinn compared station-advertiser public-service partnerships to infomercials or advertorials (print ads that look like news material).

"I think there is a blurring in how [advertisers] communicate these days," she said. "This is a way to reach people who are overwhelmed with noise."