As the pop songstress Cyndi Lauper once opined, "Money changes everything."
That's something many high-profile journalists would do well to keep in mind following the recent navel-gazing in media circles over the news that a number of journalists and commentators regularly accept speaking fees from well-heeled audiences - audiences whose interests they also happen to cover.
Journalism's dirty little secret was forced to take a public airing recently after both CBC news anchor Peter Mansbridge and commentator Rex Murphy were outed as giving paid speeches to the oil industry. Since then, both Mansbridge and Murphy have been quick to defend themselves.
Mansbridge has said he doesn't talk about anything but journalism, Murphy that he's a freelancer paid to have opinions.
But none of that quite washes. The media has huge power. Their conduct is expected not only to be above reproach but to be seen that way. Taking cash for speaking engagements, or "buckraking" as it's been dubbed, muddies the waters significantly.
Mansbridge and Murphy aren't the only ones at fault here. The number of commentators who had to preface opinion pieces on the topic with a disclosure of their own journalist-for-hire arrangements has been telling.
At its heart, this isn't a complicated issue. Those in the news business shouldn't take money from the interests whose fortunes are directly related to the public reporting of them. To paraphrase an old joke, once journalists take that cash, they've vacated the moral high ground. All that's left is dickering on the price.
