Moving Against Speaking Fees   

For the Society of Professional Journalists, ethics codes were easier the second time around.

After a false start last year, the organization has passed a revamped code--its most specific since the first was written in 1926--that includes a provision stating that journalists should not take speaking fees from trade groups and the like. Celebrity journalists have received fees as high as $35,000 for speeches, and the practice has been attacked as yet another blow to journalism's embattled credibility (see "Take the Money and Talk," June 1995).

The ban on honoraria aroused little debate and the new code was approved with little opposition at SPJ's annual meeting this September. This was in stark contrast to last year, when there was much dissent over the honoraria issue in general and criticism that the code was haphazardly written with no time for discussion (see Free Press, September 1995).

"Last year we allowed for the full debate on the convention floor. The problem was we ran out of time," says SPJ President Steve Geimann. "So we spent the last year working on the code by having discussions at every one of the regional meetings..and at the chapter meetings." SPJ has 84 professional chapters and 198 college chapters.

Congressional Quarterly reporter and former SPJ Washington chapter president Jonathan Salant, who last year fought vigorously for a provision that would prevent journalists from accepting fees for speeches, says the fact that the new code passed with little opposition is a sign of progress. "There was surprisingly little debate," he says. "Most of it was people saying, 'It's about time.' "

The new code states that journalists should "refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity."

"We need to be on the record against speaking fees," says Salant, a delegate to this year's SPJ convention in Crystal City, Virginia. "If a politician can be affected by a $10,000 political action committee contribution, how can a journalist not be affected by a $30,000 speaking fee from the same source?"

Several SPJ members take issue with the new code, arguing that it is irrelevant without any enforcement mechanism. Until 1987, when it was last revised, the code did include a censure clause that called on SPJ members to "actively" criticize peers who violated code provisions, but the new version does not contain similar language.

"It doesn't require anybody to do anything. It's a toothless code," says Casey Bukro, the only member of the ethics committee to vote against the code. "A code that doesn't require you to do anything is soon forgotten... It's gutless."

Bukro, a business reporter for the Chicago Tribune, believes the code should have some kind of amendment that would require SPJ to periodically assess how its members measure up to their own ethics.

Salant suggests that one way to enforce the new speaking fees provision is to prohibit journalists who violate the ban from being honored at or participating in SPJ events. Last year, for example, ABC reporter Carole Simpson was a "roastee" at a luncheon at SPJ's convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. ABC correspondent Sam Donaldson roasted her, and SPJ did much to promote the event. "I don't think someone like Donaldson, because he accepts speaking fees and violates our ban, should be feted anymore," says Salant.

"There's a school of thought that says SPJ should enforce the code and there's another that you talk about it and let people know what good journalism is," he adds. "I don't think SPJ can enforce it. But I think we as a society should speak out when there are journalistic violations."