• by Erik Sass , December 4, 2009

Under unprecedented financial pressure, over the last couple of years American newspaper publishers have turned to increasingly unorthodox business practices, prompting observers to question their longstanding commitment to editorial integrity.

In the latest development, A.H. Belo revealed that senior editors in the sports and entertainment departments at The Dallas Morning News will report to executives from the business side of the newspaper -- undoing the traditional separation between editorial and business operations.

The new report structure was introduced as part of a larger reorganization that includes the creation of a new executive role -- general manager, with responsibility for ad sales in different departments.

The senior editors in the Dallas Morning News' sports and entertainment departments will report to these general managers; they are the only departmental heads required to do so. (For now, senior editors for local and national news, health, travel, and real estate do not report to the general managers.)

Newspaper executives explained that the new report structure is intended to facilitate collaboration between news and advertising departments, with business executives "working closely with news leadership in product and content development." However, they did not provide further details or illustrative examples.

This raises the obvious questions of how and where such collaboration would occur. For example, will advertisers be allowed to participate directly in the "collaboration" between the news and advertising operations?

A.H. Belo is not alone in blurring the lines between the editorial and advertising sides of the business. Earlier this year, The Washington Post offered lobbyists and other interested parties the chance to "sponsor" informal, private dinners with politicians, hosted by editor Marcus Brauchli.

The "sponsorship" fees for these influence-peddling events would range from $25,000 to $250,000. (Calling them "salons" did nothing to cover up the fact that WaPo was selling access to politicians, who were presumably prepared to play along in return for a cut of the cash or favorable coverage.)

In Southern California, the San Diego Union-Tribune came under pressure from one of its new co-owners, the public safety association representing Los Angeles police officers, which wanted to muzzle op-ed contributors critical of the role played by public employees' unions in the budget process.

The editorial page of the Union-Tribune, a traditionally conservative paper, has been especially strident in denouncing public employee unions. In response, the Protective League has used its new partial ownership to put pressure on editorial bosses to either stop publishing critical op-ed pieces or simply fire the offending columnists. For the time being, owner Platinum Equity appears to be resisting the pressure.

Also this year, 55 reporters and editors at the Chicago Tribune signed an email to editor Gerould Kern and managing editor Jane Hirt accusing the paper's marketing department of surveying subscribers about unfinished stories to gauge their reaction -- laying the groundwork for deciding which articles will be published based on market sentiment. The marketing surveys were nixed, but editorial staffers never found out whether articles were changed or canceled because of responses to these surveys.

This came not long after newsroom staff at the Los Angeles Times lashed out at management for allowing an ad resembling an article on the front cover of the newspaper. The ad, for NBC's new LA police drama "Southland," was run over the objections of editor Russ Stanton and a dozen other senior editors. In an interview with TheWrap, LAT Executive Editor John Arthur called the front-page ad "horrible," "unfortunate" and "a mistake."

The conflict between editorial and business operations at the LA newspaper has been long simmering. Last summer, the original Los Angeles Times Magazine was closed and replaced by a new publication, with a new editorial staff, entirely under the control of the Los Angeles Times Media Group. In short, control of the magazine came from the business -- not editorial -- side.

For ethical reasons, Stanton requested that the Media Group not call itself the Los Angeles Times Magazine, since it is not under the control of the newspaper's editorial staff. The new publication was given a slightly different name: L.A. Los Angeles Times Magazine. However, John T. O'Loughlin, the executive vice president and CMO for target media at the LAT Media Group, has referred to the magazine as a "flagship publication" of the newspaper.