Angus Kidman on advertiser-sponsored trainee journalists

Published in The Australian, August 2 2001

For many teenage boys, it would be a dream job. PlayStation2 Magazine is seeking a trainee journalist to "play games for a living" and write reviews, it announced in its July edition.

The salary – $22,500 a year – is higher than the basic cadet rate, and the position includes one day a week TAFE training in office procedures, as well as stints in the magazine's editorial, production and advertising departments.

The idea has proved popular. While applications don't close until the end of August, more than 700 have already been received. The catch? In effect, the writer's independence. The position is not being paid for by publisher Australian Consolidated Press, but by Telstra's "youth" telephone brand, Communic8, under a sponsorship deal. Its somewhat unwieldy job title is "Communic8 Official Australian Playstation2 Magazine Trainee".

The Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance code of ethics for journalists demands that all conflicts of interest that could affect the journalist's independence must be disclosed; that commercial considerations must not undermine independence; and that payment made for stories or information must be disclosed. However, the code has nothing to say on the notion of a trainee journalist having his or her salary paid for by an advertiser, perhaps because the creators couldn't imagine such a situation arising.

PlayStation2 editor Narayan Pattison foresees no problems. "We will interview and select the most talented candidate for the position and our magazine reviews video games, not telecommunication products, so there is no possible conflict of interest," Pattison says. "The industry can only benefit from companies like Communic8 giving keen writers the chance to get some experience and have their work published."

Telstra is busy counting up the brand development benefits. "Our target market is very similar, and it's just a perfect partnership," says a Communic8 spokesperson. "It's a youth brand and it's giving something back to youth."

For its investment, Communic8 (which already had a prior advertising relationship with the magazine) gets guaranteed editorial exposure via regular articles on the trainee's progress, both in print and on the Telstra website. "There will be a diary feature every month on what they've been up to," says the Communic8 representative.

While the spokesperson labelled the promotion as a first for Australia, PlayStation2 is not the only local publication to dip its toes into these murky waters. Pacific Publications' women's magazine B earlier this year ran a competition to find a new staff member, and once again it was a phone company that footed the bills. Editorial assistant Melissa Singer thus sports the secondary title "Ericsson employee".

"We wanted to get another staff member on board," B editor Kirsten Galliott told Media. "We thought, 'Wouldn't it be great to give away a job on the magazine as a prize?', and began looking for a sponsor." Ericsson agreed to stump up the money as part of a deal that also included other advertising commitments, and the position was "advertised" by a competition in the December 2000 and January 2001 editions. The logic for choosing Ericsson?

"What journalist isn't using a mobile phone all the time?" says Galliott.

More than 500 people applied for the position, the final short list was six. "The girls went to the most extraordinary lengths to attract our attention," says Galliott. "They didn't have to have media experience, but they did have to have a lot of enthusiasm for the magazine."

And what about concerns that having a journalist whose salary is paid for by an advertiser makes a mockery of the notion of editorial independence?

"What it boils down to is we got someone who couldn't break into the industry," says Galliott. "We wouldn't have been able to afford her otherwise."

Again, the position has become a source of editorial in itself. The competition was launched with an article in B on how to present yourself in a job interview, and the magazine has since run features on the finalists for the position. Later this year, it plans further follow-up articles on what Singer's day-to-day work involves. Ericsson, of course, gets mentioned in all these articles, guaranteeing itself ongoing editorial coverage for a year at about the price of two full-page standard rate ads.

The Ericsson sponsorship runs out in March next year, but Galliott hopes Singer will stay on staff. "I can't tell you enough good things about her. I'll do everything I can to keep her."

Notwithstanding that enthusiasm, B also plans to repeat the experiment at the end of the year with a new employee. (Galliott hopes Ericsson will remain on board, but B's effective new owner, Seven, might prefer to see its own mobile network, the appropriately named B Digital, take the limelight.)

So far, these positions have been restricted to just a handful of lifestyle magazines. Nonetheless, continuing tightness in the magazine market means that those two titles are unlikely to be the last to try the sponsored journalist experiment. As Galliott points out, "Journalism is still considered a very glamorous job" – and those desperate for glamour clearly don't care who pays the bills.

Angus Kidman is a former employee of ACP and has contributed as a freelancer to PlayStation2.