Is This News for Sale?

The following is a MediaNote Classic. It was originally presented to MC101s in October 2013.

The Orange County Register, like other daily newspapers, is under severe financial pressure. So it must have seemed like a financially attractive idea when the Register sold a special "news" section to three local universities for $275,000 apiece. But some, including one Cal State Fullerton communications professor, think the newspaper is selling its journalistic ethics, and ultimately its credibility. NPR reports.

Questions...

•What do you think of what the Register did? Is it really a news section, or is it something else?

•Will this section increase the possibility that the Register will write stories critical of the universities, decrease the possibility of negative coverage, or make no difference? Why?

•Will this section hurt the Register's credibility in the long run, or will it make no difference?

•If the Los Angeles Times offered a similar deal to Glendale College, should we take it? Why or why not?