New Orleans Saints: Times-Picayune Opens Can of Worms by Paying Players

This is unacceptable.

The Times-Picayune is paying players of the New Orleans Saints to promote their newly revamped Web site. In actuality, it is the parent company of The Times-Picayune paying the players.

Drew Brees, Lance Moore, Tracy Porter, Pierre Thomas and Jonathan Vilma each tweeted their praises for the new and improved Web site.

Journalists, Web sites and newspapers around the country are going to claim that this is a conflict of interest.

They're right, it is.

Would you endorse a Web site that was critiquing you or saying bad things about you? In all likelihood, you probably wouldn't, and neither would any of the Saints players.

Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute agreed that this is an obvious conflict of interest when speaking directly with The Times-Picayune,

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On its face, that is an obvious conflict of interest. The problem is you're creating a dual relationship with the very people you're covering.

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John Hassell, the vice president of content for Advance Digital, which is the parent company of The Times-Picayune, argues this is in no way a conflict of interest.

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There's full transparency. There's no suggestion that the act of paid endorsement by a player reflects on the coverage of The Times-Picayune. The Times-Picayune sports department's coverage of the Saints is bar none the best and there was never an intention of suggesting these paid endorsements reflected on that coverage one way or the other.

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According to Hassell, there is full transparency because each of the players' tweets that they are an endorser or sponsor. Hassell claims that each player uses the word "endorser" or "spon" with a hashtag symbol to indicate this.

Transparency cannot eliminate a conflict of interest.

It is understandable that the company was just looking to reach a large number of Saints fans with this approach.

It's a great idea if it blows over, but it opens a can of worms. Other companies may now begin this tactic, and the smaller companies will be run out of the park.

The Times-Picayune should have come up with a better way to market their new Saints community. They didn't, and now they should have to deal with the backlash accordingly.