ISSUE 20 - EDITORIAL

In The Elements of Journalism Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel maintain that practitioners of journalism must maintain an independence from those they cover.

Someone said to me the other day, why don’t you have a Best Of contest? My response, what’s the point in that? Then, I added, encore and the Star News do it already. Then it brought about feelings I’ve long held about contests and the possible reasons behind it. It’s done solely for profit and not for celebration, which seems an inappropriate way to make some extra cash. Why not just celebrate? Encore doesn’t seem to be hurting on ads. I thought of Chinatown, when Jack Nicholson says to John Huston, How much better can you eat?
A few days later I read encore’s ‘Setting the Truth Straight’ that sought to answer questions about their contest. Questions such as; “do the staffers change the outcome of winners,” “do encore advertisers only win,” and “how many votes did each winner receive?” Some people naturally distrust. Does encore rig it? Logic dictates otherwise. But the money side got me thinking again.
There are people who don’t care much for contests, specifically ones that you can’t make heads or tails of. I’m one of them. Take the Oscars this year. Please. Every year it seems more and more politicized and glad-handed. I love Alan Arkin, but I don’t buy him winning over Djimon Honsou.
Encore having a Best of contest is a smart way to spread the word about their publication, every year people grow to expect it, and the contest gets more well known. It’s fun. It’s interesting to see who wins each year. Their advertisers don’t always win. But what’s troubling is that encore won’t divulge the number of votes each winner receives. It’s their prerogative, sure. There may be a plausible reason for that but it does raise an eyebrow. Was the number of votes just minimal to begin with? If you won’t state how many votes a particular winner received then where’s the trust? Also troubling was the previous year in which encore ran a best magazine category and gave it to themselves. Encore should not have been in the running. It doesn’t establish trust.
While the piece in encore sought to answer questions and be humorous, it still doesn’t suffice. Also, a best of award is a nice thing to receive but it’s based solely on the readers of the publication. It doesn’t accurately represent the best of Wilmington. A contest, like a poll, is only as good as its audience, the audience that reads encore. Encore does not, nor does any publication, represent the population of this growing city. That’s silly to claim. But publishing is a business and you have to show off a little. It garners attention. And ad dollars.
But why not have a best of contest and leave it at that? Encore shamelessly state in the piece they do it to make a few more bucks, as if the public is silly for asking the question. The contest is a way to raise ad dollars. Surely there better ways to do it. I could suggest some but that would be giving away ideas.
Yes, free publications are paid for through advertising dollars. It’s a tough business sometimes. But ‘continuing to find ways to sell ads’ is a dubious statement. I am no authority on ethics in journalism but it has always struck me as unethical and in no way objective to have a story in a publication about a business and an ad from the same business in that very publication. Maybe I’m wrong. But when I see that, trust goes out the window in addition to respect. How can we trust the writers and the publication? Integrity is key in this business, not just ad dollars. Magazines and weekly publications rely not only creating an identity and informing the public, they must establish trust with readers.
I am not seeking to disparage encore or its staff. They work hard just as any publication does. They’ll tell you, it’s a lot of work. But people will read this and say I’m bitter or jealous. Not true. I’m doing my own thing just as they are and I will continue to do so, with or without ads. If I had it my way, I’d publish BOOTLEG with as few ads as possible. What’s important are the people we cover. For over twenty years encore has informed this city on a weekly basis. I read it as a teenager. If you want to know what events are going on in the area you’ll probably find it in there. But where’s the humbleness? That’s all I’m saying.
The point of this editorial is raise the question of how much is enough? At what point does money overtake the responsibility and privilege of creating, writing and celebrating the stories to be covered. How much better can we eat?

- Brian Tucker