The Times bows to Google

Buried in a feature in Mother Jones, an extraordinary revelation. New York Times reporters send questions in writing to Google PR before conducting interviews. And the newspaper has no problem with that.

When I first contacted Google for this story, a company publicist insisted I provide a list of detailed questions, in writing; when I said that I had a problem with a source dictating the terms for an interview, he claimed that everyone who covers Google—including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal—submits advance questions... The Google flack assured me that this was so he could find the best person for me to talk to—more information for Google, so that Google could better serve me.

It's not such a surprise that the journalist, Adam Penenberg, was grilled before being given access. He was doing a story for Mother Jones, the anti-capitalist Vanity Fair, and the central question was mundane, but uncomfortable: Is Google Evil? Asking for questions, ahead of time, is a tactic more commonly associated with the foreign ministries of repressive regimes, but big and supposedly open companies are sometimes guilty of it. The flack was presumably Google's David Krane. Not his usual style, but not a scandal in and of itself.

Penenberg didn't quite believe that the Times would play along, so he hit the newspaper for an official comment.

(A Times spokeswoman told me the paper sees no ethical problems with such a procedure, though individual reporters' decisions may vary; an editor in charge of editorial standards at the Journal said the same thing.)

Here's the extraordinary thing. A lot of technology journalists, not the Markoffs and Mossbergs but the junior ones most in need of access, do play along with company demands. The compromise is subtle, preserving, barely, their ethical virginity. They don't send the actual questions, but they compromise by emailing over a list of topics for discussion. It's a game.

If Penenberg's report is accurate, some Times reporters have caved completely. Access to the search engine company's management may be critical to a reporter's career, the Times may have lost some of the confidence that it once had, and the balance of power between print and the internet may indeed have shifted. But, guys, at least go down with some dignity.

See also: When the NYT Asks For an Interview, Be Sure Provide a Rider [Jossip]

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