Former Take a Break editor condemns 'greed' of journalism's freebie culture
The former editor of a top-selling UK magazine has launched a stinging attack on journalists who accept free gifts from the PR industry.
In an article in this month’s edition of media magazine, Press Gazette, former Take a Break editor John Dale condemns the “grasping and the greed” of journalists who routinely accept freebies from PRs.
In his article, Dale highlights a recent Asda fashion preview in which journalists were given a £30 voucher.
The fact they could spend it on anything at the store, including groceries, meant the company “might as well give the journalists £30 cash”, he claims.
“I’ve seen more outstretched hands than in an Oxfam poster,” says Dale. “The sad thing is they come with painted fingernails rather than skeletal arms and are not attached to hungry children but to some of my professional colleagues."
Dale argued that while the media loved to act as moral arbiter “our practices are institutionally suspect. Don’t particularly blame Asda,” he points out.
“They’re innocent. They simply tune into the expectations of some journalists, that they should be rewarded merely for turning up and doing a nice, cushy number.
“Refreshments? A goody bag? Oh, and here’s your gift card. Enjoy, darling! Would anyone give £30 vouchers to police officers? Or MPs? And if they did, guess who’d lead the lynch mobs.
"Yes, journalists. This kind of corruption is so embedded that we cannot see it for what it is: behaviour widespread enough to shame a Pakistani cricketer moonlighting for FIFA.”
Dale said that freebies and phone-hacking are on the same “continuum of moral corrosion”, but added that there are “fine, brave journalists who do say no”.
Dale claimed that asking journalists about freebies resulted in some people sounding like “finalists reeling off prizes at the end of The Generation Game.”
“How do I know? First-hand, I’m afraid,” he says. “As an editor for 20 years (of women’s weekly Take a Break), I was an occasional beneficiary. I took a cruise and I visited Florida but at least I wrote lengthy reviews.
“That was in the 1990s. Everything else I raffled to my staff. Not an excuse, but, with therapy, I have climbed back on the straight and narrow.
“You name it, we can get it. We’re not called the consumer press for nothing... one writer told me: ‘I’ve had endless dinners at top restaurants, a diamond ring, a loose diamond solitaire, concerts at the 02, Ladies Day at Ascot, a trip to Paris with spending money, haircuts and beauty treatments at pretty much any salon I want, a £100 wash bag, top of the range juicer, lots of trips to spas and hotels. Don’t name me. I’d hate to lose out!’”
Dale also commented that in order to hold others to account, journalists “must first hold themselves to account”, adding: “Journalism should be bursting, not with villains and villainy, but with heroes and heroism.”
He left Take a Break magazine last year, after nearly 20 years in charge.