E. B. White Champions The Free Press And Warns Against Unhealthy Sponsored Posts (1976)

In February 1976, Esquire magazine intended to publish a 23-page article by Harrison Salisbury (November 14, 1908 – July 5, 1993), an esteemed journalist and recipient of the 1955 Pulitzer Prize-winning for his work at The New York Times’ Moscow bureau. The article would be sponsored by Xerox. The tech giant had paid Salisbury $65,000 (inc. $15,000 in expenses). The story, for which Esquire would pay Salisbury nothing, was trailed in late 1975. And when Elwyn Brooks ‘E. B.’ White (July 11, 1899 – October 1, 1985) heard of it he was revolted, writing an open letter to Maine’s Ellsworth American. You can read that letter hereunder, also the reply White received from Xerox’s Director of Communications, W.B. Jones, and White’s final missive to Xerox.

White’s letters worked. The story was spiked. But sponsored content never went away. It continues to erode an independent media.

 

 

E. B. White to the Editor of the Ellsworth American
January 1, 1976

To the Editor:

I think it might be useful to stop viewing fences for a moment and take a close look at Esquire magazine’s new way of doing business. In February, Esquire will publish a long article by Harrison E. Salisbury, for which Mr. Salisbury will receive no payment from Esquire but will receive $40,000 from the Xerox Corporation—plus another $15,000 for expenses. This, it would seem to me, is not only a new idea in publishing, it charts a clear course for the erosion of the free press in America. Mr. Salisbury is a former associate editor of the New York Times and should know better. Esquire is a reputable sheet and should know better. But here we go—the Xerox-Salisbury-Esquire axis in full cry!

A news story about this amazing event in the December 14th issues of the Times begins: “Officials of Esquire magazine and of the Xerox Corporation report no adverse reactions, so far, to the announcement that Esquire will publish a 23-page article [about travels through America] in February ‘sponsored’ by Xerox.” Herewith I am happy to turn in my adverse reaction even if it is the first one across the line.

Esquire, according to the Times story, attempts to justify its new payment system (get the money from a sponsor) by assuring us that Mr. Salisbury will not be tampered with by Xerox; his hand and his pen will be free. If Xerox likes what he writes about America, Xerox will run a “low keyed full-page ad preceding the article” and another ad at the end of it. From this advertising, Esquire stands to pick up $115,000, and Mr. Salisbury has already picked up $40,000, traveling, all expenses paid, through his once happy land…

Apparently Mr. Salisbury had a momentary qualm about taking on the Xerox job. The Times reports him as saying, “At first I thought, gee whiz, should I do this?” But he quickly compared his annoying doubts and remembered that big corporations had in the past been known to sponsor “cultural enterprises,” such as opera. The emergence of a magazine reporter as a cultural enterprise is as stunning a sight as the emergence of a butterfly from a cocoon. Mr. Salisbury must have felt great, escaping from his confinement.

Well, it doesn’t take a giant intellect to detect in all this the shadow of disaster. If magazines decide to farm out their writers to advertisers and accept the advertiser’s payment to the writer and to the magazine, then the periodicals of this country will be far down the drain and will become so fuzzy as to be indistinguishable from the controlled press in other parts of the world.

E. B. White

 

 

Xerox’s Director of Communications to E. B. White:

January 21, 1976

Mr. E. B. White
Ellsworth, Maine

Dear Mr. White:

As a long-time admirer of your work and also one of the people responsible for the Xerox sponsorship of the Salisbury piece in Esquire, I read your editorial in the American with a great deal of interest — and, frankly, some dismay. Because we’re now considering sponsoring some other magazine projects, I’d like to understand better why you see the shadow of disaster in the idea before we decide whether to go ahead.

I understand your point that corporations shouldn’t underwrite an article that promotes their commercial interests in any way. No argument. Salisbury’s piece didn’t (enclosed is a reprint), nor will any other project of this type that we touch.

We got into this as an extension of what we’ve done for years on television: sponsoring programs of substance that might not otherwise have gotten on the air. The programs were never about our business in any way; in some cases, they were so controversial that customers tossed out their Xerox machines. But most viewers seemed to see them as programs of high quality and value, and they seemed to think better of Xerox as a result. That’s worth something to us. Now, however, a number of other companies are sponsoring the same kind of television fare. We thought we might be able to do something useful for Xerox by extending this same sort of support for projects of quality and significance in magazines, and that this support would also be useful to magazines and their readers. We saw this as supporting the free press, not corrupting it.

It seemed to us that the sponsorship was not subject to question provided: 1. Both the magazine and the writer had earned reputations for absolute integrity; 2. Our sponsorship was open and identified to readers; 3. The writer was paid “up front,” so that his fee did not depend in any way on our reaction to the piece; 4. The writer understood that this was a one-shot assignment and he’d get no other from Xerox, no matter what we thought of the piece; 5. The magazine retained full editorial control of the project.

With these ground rules, do you still see something sinister in the sponsorship? The question is put seriously, because if a writer of your achievement and insight — after considering the terms of the arrangement — still sees this kind of corporate sponsorship as leading the periodicals of this country toward the controlled press of other parts of the world, then we may well reconsider our plans to underwrite similar projects in the future.

Sincerely,

W. B. Jones
Director of Communications

 

 

E. B. White’s Reply:

North Brooklin

January 30, 1976

Dear Mr. Jones:

In extending my remarks on sponsorship, published in the Ellsworth American, I want to limit my discussion to the press—that is, to newspapers and magazines. I’ll not speculate about television, as television is outside my experience and I have no ready opinion about sponsorship in that medium.

In your recent letter to me, you ask whether, having studied your ground rules for proper conduct in sponsoring a magazine piece, I still see something sinister in the sponsorship. Yes, I do. Sinister may not be the right word, but I see something ominous and unhealthy when a corporation underwrites an article in a magazine of general circulation. This is not, essentially, the old familiar question of an advertiser trying to influence editorial content; almost everyone is acquainted with that common phenomenon. Readers are aware that it is always present but usually in a rather subdued or non-threatening form. Xerox’s sponsoring of a specific writer on a specific occasion for a specific article is something quite different. No one, as far as I know, accuses Xerox of trying to influence editorial opinion. But many people are wondering why a large corporation placed so much money on a magazine piece, why the writer of the piece was willing to get paid in so unusual a fashion, and why Esquire was ready and willing to have an outsider pick up the tab. These are reasonable questions.

The press in our free country is reliable and useful not because of its good character but because of its great diversity. As long as there are many owners, each pursuing his own brand of truth, we the people have the opportunity to arrive at the truth and to dwell in the light. The multiplicity of ownership is crucial. It’s only when there are a few owners, or, as in a government-controlled press, one owner, that the truth becomes elusive and the light fails. For a citizen in our free society, it is an enormous privilege and a wonderful protection to have access to hundreds of periodicals, each peddling its own belief. There is safety in numbers: the papers expose each other’s follies and peccadillos, correct each other’s mistakes, and cancel out each other’s biases. The reader is free to range around in the whole editorial bouillabaisse and explore it for the one clam that matters—the truth.

When a large corporation or a rich individual underwrites an article in a magazine, the picture changes: the ownership of that magazine has been diminished, the outline of the magazine has been blurred. In the case of the Salisbury piece, it was as though Esquire had gone on relief, was accepting its first welfare payment, and was not its own man anymore. The editor protests that he accepts full responsibility for the text and that Xerox had nothing to do with the whole business. But the fact remains that, despite his full acceptance of responsibility, he somehow did not get around to paying the bill. This is unsettling and I think unhealthy. Whenever money changes hands, something goes along with it—an intangible something that varies with the circumstances. It would be hard to resist the suspicion that Esquire feels indebted to Xerox, that Mr. Salisbury feels indebted to both, and that the ownership, or sovereignty, of Esquire has been nibbled all around the edges.

Sponsorship in the press is an invitation to corruption and abuse. The temptations are great, and there is an opportunist behind every bush. A funded article is a tempting morsel for any publication—particularly for one that is having a hard time making ends meet. A funded assignment is a tempting dish for a writer, who may pocket a much larger fee than he is accustomed to getting. And sponsorship is attractive to the sponsor himself, who, for one reason or another, feels an urge to penetrate the editorial columns after being so long pent up in the advertising pages. These temptations are real, and if the barriers were to be let down I believe corruption and abuse would soon follow. Not all corporations would approach subsidy in the immaculate way Xerox did or in the same spirit of benefaction. There are a thousand reasons for someone’s wishing to buy his way into print, many of them unpalatable, all of them to some degree self-serving. Buying and selling space in news columns could become a serious disease of the press. If it reached epidemic proportions, it could destroy the press. I don’t want IBM or the National Rifle Association providing me with a funded spectacular when I open my paper. I want to read what the editor and the publisher have managed to dig up on their own—and paid for out of the till.

My affection for the free press in a democracy goes back a long way. My love for it was my first and greatest love. If I felt a shock at the news of the Salisbury-Xerox-Esquire arrangement, it was because the sponsorship principle seemed to challenge and threaten everything I believe in: that the press must not only be free, it must be fiercely independent—to survive and to serve. Not all papers are fiercely independent, God knows, but there are always enough of them around to provide a core of integrity and an example that others feel obliged to steer by. The funded article is not in itself evil, but it is the beginning of evil, and it is an invitation to evil. I hope the invitation will not again be extended, and, if extended, I hope it will be declined.

About a hundred and fifty years ago, Tocqueville wrote: “The journalists of the United States are generally in a very humble position, with a scanty education and a vulgar turn of mind.” Today, we chuckle at this antique characterization. But about fifty years ago, when I was a young journalist, I had the good fortune to encounter an editor who fitted the description quite closely. Harold Ross, who founded The New Yorker, was deficient in education and had—at least to all outward appearances—a vulgar turn of mind. What he did possess, though, was the ferocity of independence. He was having a tough time finding money to keep his floundering little sheet alive, yet he was determined that neither money nor infiuence would ever corrupt his dream or deflower his text. His boiling point was so low as to be comical. The faintest suggestion of the shadow of advertising in his news and editorial columns would cause him to erupt. He would explode in anger, the building would reverberate with his wrath, and his terrible swift sword would go flashing up and down the corridors. For a young man, it was an impressive sight and a memorable one. Fifty years have not dimmed for me either the spectacle of Ross’s ferocity or my own early convictions—which were identical to his. He has come to my mind often while I’ve been composing this reply to your inquiry.

I hope I’ve clarified by a little bit my feelings about the anatomy of the press and the dangers of sponsorship of articles. Thanks for giving me the chance to speak my piece.

Sincerely,

E. B. White

 

Via Letters of Note and Letters of E. B. White