By Donald R. Winslow
© 2007 News Photographer magazine
DURHAM, NC (July 26, 2007) - The National Football League has responded to NPPA's complaint about the upcoming season's new requirement that sideline photographers wear mandatory NFL red vests that bear corporate advertising logos by sending NPPA's executive director the vest design for examination. The NFL's initial response to NPPA's objections also includes the league's feelings that the logos are not a problem because they're small, and not really an issue, and that corporate logos have been on photographers' vests at other major sporting events before without being protested. It's an opinion that seems to be supported, at least in some measure, by one major wire service - but it is not the opinion of many newspaper editors and journalism organizations who are still concerned about the ethical ramifications of journalists wearing corporate advertising.
"What I see when I look at that vest design are corporate logos endorsing products, plain and simple," NPPA executive director Jim Straight said. "And it implies that the wearer of that vest also endorses those products or at least works for the organization that does. Wouldn't there be an outcry if journalists covering the Democratic National Convention were forced to wear a candidate's bumper sticker on their backs? Why is this different? Those logos serve no security function and they shouldn't be there."
While some newspaper editors are saying they won't send photographers to cover NFL games this season if the vests still have corporate logos on them come game day, and the Chicago Tribune has gone on the record with that sentiment in a Editorial they published this week, the Associated Press photo service has given its feedback to the NFL and indicate that they will have AP photographers wear the vests if the vests and logos stay as they are planned.
"The Canon and Reebok logos, while of some concern, appear reasonably sized and we acknowledge the common practice of sponsorship appearing on event vests, not just at the NFL but at sporting events the world over," Associated Press director of photography Santiago Lyon told News Photographer magazine. "We would, however, be very concerned should there be any increase in the size or number of these logos. Our presence at NFL events is to record them as photojournalists and distribute images the world over, not become walking billboards through larger or more numerous sponsorship logos. I communicated our position in a letter to NFL commissioner [Roger] Goodell yesterday [Tuesday]."
The AP response coming out of the New York photo desk is a bit different than the opposition voiced by the Associated Press Managing Editors organization. APME's letter to the NFL commissioner said the vests with corporate logos goes against "our desire not to have our working press photographers become unwilling participants in any commercial and marketing arrangements the NFL has with its sponsors." Their letter of objection also said, "we work assiduously to avoid conflicts of interest, or appearances of them. For that reason it is anathema to us that our employees should be put in the position of becoming walking billboards or be viewed as troublemakers for refusing to wear advertising materials just to do their jobs." APME president Karen Magnuson, editor of the Rochester (NY) Democrat & Chronicle, wrote APME's letter to the NFL and told commissioner Goodell that the vests with corporate logos "compromise our objectivity, our independence, and our ethics."
The Chicago Tribune's stance on the matter is much more straightforward and leaves little doubt. They told readers in a July 22 Editorial, "Reporters and photographers are explicitly forbidden from endorsing products or profiting from a story or event. But the NFL wants to make news photographers part of the NFL 'product.' The Tribune won't allow its photographers to cover games in vests with logos. 'We're not doing it,' said George de Lama, the managing editor for news. 'Absolutely not.' If the rule doesn't change, the paper will cover the NFL without visuals."
"The NFL seems to be missing the point," NPPA's general legal counsel Mickey H. Osterreicher said after seeing the vest design. "We do not care that the vest is aesthetically pleasing, or not or that the logos of its sponsors are small, or that other organizations have required the same thing in the past. What we care about and object to is that as journalists we are being forced to display advertising logos on a vest that is now required to be worn as part of new credential and security measures. This creates an appearance of impropriety that goes against all journalistic ethics."
"This nonsense has to be protested with the strongest voice we can muster," John Long said today. He's the chairperson of NPPA's Ethics & Standards Committee and for many years has been NPPA's voice on ethical concerns and recently retired from the Hartford Courant.
"It was always forbidden (at the Courant) to have political bumper stickers on our company cars. The company sent a check at the beginning of each season to our local college basketball team to cover the cost of the pizza they provided before and after the games. We had to maintain our independence. This is the proper stance for any news gathering organization. The same holds true for us: the size of the logos means nothing. The fact that we are being asked to become walking Nascar vehicles is damaging in itself. If the NFL demands we sell our souls for admittance, it is time for us to walk away."
The Radio Television News Directors Association, the Newspaper Association of America, and the Society for News Design, and the American Society of Newspaper Editors have all expressed their objections to the NFL over the issue of corporate logos on mandatory photographer vests. In addition, RTNDA is protesting new NFL restrictions on the amount of video, and its run time, that can be placed on broadcasters' Web sites. RTNDA points out that once again, the NFL has put into place new rules without consulting with the journalists and organizations that those rules impact.
