The B. the basics of flouted journalism | The Press

“How to reduce stress related to homework: advice for students”, is the title of the article published in December 2022. One of these tips is surprising: “EduBirdie offers to take care of your homework in return for a remuneration. »

As we suspect, the highly questionable content of this “report” was paid for by EduBirdie, a Ukrainian company which makes organized cheating its business. But that’s not the most incredible or the most shocking part of this story.

The most incredible thing is that the text in question is signed Patrick White, none other than the director of the journalism program at UQAM!

On his personal site, PatWhite.com, the professor has signed at least 113 sponsored articles, several of which lead to online casino sites. One of them leads directly to a Ukrainian escort agency!

The professor’s lack of judgment in this matter is as distressing as it is incomprehensible. Patrick White, however, was not born recently. For years, he has been invited to comment on the workings of the media on all platforms. He was a journalist and executive at the Reuters agency, at La Presse Canadienne, at Quebec Journalat CTV News, at the Huffington Post…

But now we discover that, journalistically speaking, this experienced communicator made a rookie mistake. Worse, he committed a crime of lèse-majesté. He was paid to write sponsored stories. Even if, in reality, it was not he who wrote these texts, he agreed to put his name and face on dozens of articles which had nothing journalistic about them.

It was just advertising. “Branded content”, as they say. Promotional articles, distributed by French-speaking advertising agencies in Europe and Canada.

Some texts, signed PatWhite.com, were accompanied by a drawing representing the professor. Others, signed Patrick, were accompanied by his photo. Sponsored articles, which were removed from the site in recent weeks, were marked with “branded content”.

I admitted to him on Thursday that I didn’t understand how he could have played this game. I asked him, “Did you mind putting your name on that?”

— It wasn’t my name, it was the name of the site.

— Yes, but the name of the site… it’s your name! PatWhite.com!

— Yes, absolutely, I understand. It’s a gray area, sponsored content. And I understand that this content in particular was not the idea of ​​the century, in fact. This is why there will never be any more and why the site will close in the coming days. »

Patrick White will also step down from directing the UQAM journalism program at the end of the year. Then, in 2024, he will take unpaid leave to think about his future at the university.

It was Professor Jean-Hugues Roy who discovered the pot aux roses when visiting Patrick White’s site last month. “What I saw knocked me to the ground. Dozens and dozens of sponsored content, which he signed himself. » He consulted another professor, Kathleen Lévesque, a former investigative journalist at The Press. She had the same reaction as him. “Honestly,” she said, “my jaw dropped. »

The text promoting EduBirdie, in particular, stunned her. He flatly advises students to pay “technicians” to do their homework for them. “It’s an incitement to plagiarism,” she protests. An unforgivable mistake, in a university as in journalism.

Another text claims to reveal the “Top 3 best gyms with swimming pools in Berlin”. Rather niche, as a subject, you will tell me. It doesn’t get any better when reading the article: “If you’re looking to combine fitness with the pleasure of swimming, Berlin is the ideal place for you. This is the perfect opportunity to take your partner there after meeting a Ukrainian woman [sic] on sites like Ladadate for a moment of relaxation. » A hyperlink leads to the website of this Ukrainian escort agency…

Other texts on the car racer Gilles Villeneuve, the filmmaker Philippe Falardeau or urban art lead to online gaming sites. All of this is truly astounding.

“There’s a lot of automation of banner ads,” Patrick White explained to me. There are some [articles] that I didn’t see, there are some that I saw, it was in a gray area, indeed, and if I had to do it again, I would do it completely differently today. » The sponsored content did not enrich him, he asserts, since it only served to finance the website.

Still. It just doesn’t happen in journalism. It’s all our credibility that is at stake. It’s the public’s trust that we risk losing with stories like this. Fortunately, journalism students from UQAM had the courage to denounce the situation on Thursday evening in the Montreal Campus, the university’s student newspaper. There is hope for the future of the profession.

On Monday, the Professional Federation of Journalists of Quebec urgently suspended Patrick White’s associate membership card. She will decide in January whether to revoke it.

Caught in the turmoil, the director of the UQAM Media School, Pierre Barrette, nevertheless emphasizes that Patrick White is no longer a journalist, but a journalism teacher. The nuance is subtle, but important, he believes.

If Patrick White were a professor of, say, biology, and if he had posted sponsored content on his personal site, it wouldn’t have raised as many eyebrows. Either. But hey, Patrick White is indeed a journalism teacher. He teaches future journalists about ethics. Journalistic ethics. The B. basics of the profession.

And while he teaches them all these beautiful principles, he gets paid for articles on organized cheating, on online casinos and lots of junk for sale…

As Jean-Hugues Roy told me: “You don’t sell your credibility for garden furniture. » It’s obvious. It doesn’t take a journalism 101 class to understand that.