Can you trust your technology columnist?

The call from Julie Olsen, the public relations manager for the Cheeca Lodge in Islamorada, Fla., was anything but friendly.

“My general manager saw a story you wrote about fishing in Florida,” she began. “He wants to know why we’re not mentioned in it.”

I had stayed at the Cheeca Lodge about a month earlier, while researching a book about Florida. I ended up writing an article on fishing in the Gulf of Mexico that appeared on ABCNews.com.

“Well,” I said, “There just wasn’t an opportunity to mention your hotel.”

Olsen cut me off. “That’s not good enough,” she snapped. “You can’t expect me to go back to my general manager and tell him that.”

“Yes I can.”

“Look,” she said. “Maybe if you can assure me that you’ll write about the Cheeca Lodge in a future story…”

“I can’t guarantee anything. Besides, I paid for my hotel room. What makes you think I’m obligated to write anything about your hotel?”

There was a moment of stunned silence and then Olsen began backpedaling. “I’m so sorry,” she apologized. “I thought we had given you a free room. Well, that changes everything. I’m so sorry about the trouble. I hope you’ll stay with us next time you’re here. I’m so sorry.”

Olsen’s aggressive behavior isn’t unusual in this business. Journalists who write about travel and technology are often offered free rooms, meals, transportation, software or hardware but are also expected to write flattering things about the destinations or products. At many trade publications, the perks are even considered part of the otherwise pathetic compensation. But there’s a price to be paid for the freebies: journalists must effectively abandon their mission of reporting the truth. Readers end up with watered-down or misleading stories without knowing it.

After last week’s call and a series of e-mails asking me to clarify what I do with the evaluation software and hardware that I receive as part of my columnist duties, I think it’s time to address this problematic issue head-on.

Let’s stay with the Cheeca Lodge for a minute. I’ve been a loyal guest and patron of its restaurant on again and off again for six years. When I lived in Florida, I visited the property regularly to feed the fish in its pond, catch a sunset on its pier or eat one of its fabulous bread puddings for dessert. But on my last visit, I noticed that the clientele seemed different – more children and families, fewer professionals. In addition, the buildings looked as if they had fallen into disrepair. I reached the painful conclusion that the Cheeca Lodge had turned into an overpriced, run-down shell of its former self. I say painful, because I liked the hotel and I never wanted it to change.

This is precisely the kind of news that a savvy public relations executive could suppress by offering me a free room. What’s more, she could demand a mention in an upcoming story with the understanding that it would be a favorable reference. When a reporter doesn’t play along, the whole scheme falls apart. And then you get columns like the one you’re reading.

I would offer a few statistics to underscore my arguments, but there are none. The Poynter Institute, which tracks journalism ethics issues such as these, hasn’t done a study on freebies. That, in itself, is telling: the practice of accepting perks is so widespread and so controversial that even the pre-eminent journalism think-tank has thought twice about dealing with it. I covered the issue of travel writers accepting gratis rooms and transportation in one of my Crabby Traveler columns last year, but since then I haven’t seen much on the topic.

“You have to ask yourself, ‘Why is someone giving me something for free?’ Well, it’s obviously because they want to influence you,” Bob Steele, director of the ethics program at the Poynter Institute, told me. “When a journalist accept anything from a source, it raises significant questions about his or her independence. Readers don’t have the confidence that a reporter is approaching the story from a factual basis.”

Many writers would dispute Steele’s assertion. I’ve had an ongoing argument for years with an editor at a well-known travel trade publication about how perks affect his publication’s editorial direction. He insists that a gratis item won’t predispose him to say anything excessively positive, but that on the rare occasion when something doesn’t work correctly, he’ll look the other way.

All of which brings us to my personal policy on any trinkets that come my way while I research this column. I get a lot of free stuff – most of it software programs, but also a fair amount of peripherals. Often, it’s the only opportunity to review a product. As a general rule, I donate the software to charity and return the hardware to the manufacturer after I’m done evaluating it– although it’s been the other way around in a few cases. (As for travel, I never ask for a free room, flight or rental car as a matter of practice. The most I will request is a corporate rate, since I’m usually traveling on business.)

What’s this done for my coverage? You decide:

- I paid the retail price for my Macintosh laptop computer, then decided it wasn’t working for me. So I wrote a column about getting rid of it. The manufacturer offered to send me the latest and greatest notebook after my scathing farewell, but I turned it down and then wrote a hard-hitting follow-up column to boot.

- IBM sent over a copy of its ViaVoice speech recognition software. I tried it and it fried my system. I let ‘em have it in the column. Quote: “ViaVoice is kind of like hosting a foreign exchange student: every tenth word or so doesn’t register.” The software is in a stack of boxes that’s being donated to charity.

- A roundup of products that help publish remote Web site grudgingly gave Drumbeat the “best in class” category. When I discovered a better program, I promptly revoked the title and gave it to Macromedia’s Dreamweaver. I gave both programs away.

- When 3Com lent me its latest Palm Pilot, I resisted the urge to pen a fawning piece about the cool gadget. Instead, I gave it a common-sense review pitting it against a laptop computer and a daytimer. Palm wasn’t pleased. I mailed the PDA back.

There are a few other technology and travel columnists who eschew freebies out of a deep conviction that receiving them is wrong. Fewer still go out of their way to write about something when it doesn’t work. Consider me in the latter category. If a product blows up on the launch pad, you can bet that I’ll be there with a pen and paper to write about it.

That’s not to say I’m perfect – I’ve made mistakes in this column and corrected them on several occasions – but it means that my alliance is with you, the reader. Not to the advertiser or the supplier who regard freebies as another form of advertising.

If only the Julie Olsens of the world could understand that.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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