The call started like almost every other call with a potential client. Small talk. A few questions to me about writing experience and industry knowledge.  A few answers from him about his needs. It was going well. My radar said it seemed like a solid client. He owned a small content marketing company with a few medium sized clients that I recognized and talked about needing help with blog posts, white papers and case studies that his clients often requested. And he seemed very interested in the high profile business magazines I had worked for. Then he said the words that made my stomach churn.

“Well, what I really want to hire you for is to place articles about my clients in the publications that you write for. I will pay you a very high rate.”

There was silence. Even though I have had this situation before, I still find it uncomfortable because no matter how nicely you say it, you are still telling someone that what they are asking you to do is unethical. It a very large breach of ethics to take money from sources to write about their company or products in a magazine, publication or any place else. And it is something that you just shouldn’t do because not only will it significantly burn bridges for you if it is discovered, it also dilutes the ethics of journalism as a whole.

Placing an article is very different than ghost writing an article for an executive that will run in a trade publication under their byline. It is also very different than writing a piece of content for a brand that will run labeled as Sponsored Content on a website such as Entrepreneur.com or Forbes. These are both totally ethical assignments. But taking money to either put an article written by someone else under your byline or use a source that paid you in an article for another publication is simply unethical.

While this typically happens to writers who write for consumer publications, trade publications and online websites, I wanted to talk about it because these opportunities typically are disguised as content marketing writing opportunities. I am sure that this has always been an issue, but I am encountering this request more often in recent months and have heard that other writer friends are seeing the same disturbing trend.

Here is how I typically respond to this request:

1. Take a deep breath.
2. Assume that the “client” is not purposely trying to be unethical, but simply doesn’t understand that what they are asking you to do is not acceptable. Although most people who ask this request know that it is “against the rules,” I find that by assuming the best that I am able to more effectively respond to their request. And if they honestly didn’t know it was a breach of ethics (which is usually pretty obvious when this is the case), then I am helping to educate them.
3. Say something along the lines of “I must have misunderstood your request because taking money to place an article or write about a source is against journalism ethics. Placing an article is just not something that I am willing to do.” The client will either typically quickly retract and say that’s not what they meant, but were instead offering to pay you for something else. Or they will apologize profusely because they didn’t realize it was unethical.
4. If a client responds that other writers provide this service (yes, I have gotten this response more than once), then I will say politely that placing articles simply is not something that I am willing to do.
5. I then end the call quickly in a professional and polite manner. The clients who backtracked saying I misunderstood will tell me that they will follow up with me about the blog post or article. But never once have I ever heard back from these clients again.

What has your experience been with requests to place articles? How do you handle these requests?