'NYT' Columnist Cheats Death, Paper's Swag Policy?
So yesterday we mentioned Joe Sharkey, the NYT business travel columnist who survived a plane crash while on freelance assignment. As Sharkey put it:
I've contributed the "On the Road"column for The New York Times business-travel section every week for the last seven years. But I was on the Embraer 600 for a freelance assignment for Business Jet Traveler magazine. My fellow passengers included executives from Embraer and a charter company called ExcelAire, the new owner of the jet. David Rimmer, the senior vice president of Excel Aire, had invited me to ride home on the jet his company had just taken possession of at Embraer's headquarters here. And it had been a nice ride.
We bet it had. We wonder, though, given the Times'well-known embargo against writers who accept freebies of any kind: Who paid for the ticket? Just asking!
After the jump, some ridiculous parsing of ethical guidelines and the possible solution that may save Sharkey's ass a second time.
From the paper's "Ethical Journalism Guidebook":
No writer or editor for the Travel section, whether on assignment or not, may accept free or discounted services of any sort from any element of the travel industry. This includes hotels, resorts, restaurants, tour operators, airlines, railways, cruise lines, rental car companies and tourist attractions.
Hmmm! Pretty clear-cut. However, elsewhere in the guidelines is a loophole that Sharkey could easily cite, namely an exception to the no-freebies rule for special circumstances, such as "a flight aboard a corporate jet during which an executive is interviewed." Then there's the whole "almost fucking died' loophole, which might incline one to cut the fella a little slack.
Colliding With Death at 37,000 Feet, and Living [NYT]
The Free Press [SFW]
