In the video, a penitent Chris Chong is shown explaining his actions
An article by Mumbrella Asia said that the Australian founder submitted articles of four of his clients iCandy, High Spark, Air Swap and FOMO.
Forbes pulled his articles from its website after someone alerted them to the fact (the person’s name or position was not disclosed).
In a statement, a Forbes spokeswoman issued a statement stating that” all contributors to Forbes.com sign a contract requiring them to disclose any potential conflicts of interest.”
“When it came to our attention that Mr Chong violated these terms, we removed all his Posts from Forbes.com and ended our relationship with him.”
The spokeswoman added that Forbes cannot “police every article published given the volume of information posted by such providers.”
“Notwithstanding the foregoing, Forbes reserves the right to remove information provided by other information content providers at any time at its sole discretion,” she concluded.
An investigative piece by Outline wrote that Chong allegedly received payments of US$1,100 to publish articles for his clients on Forbes. This was revealed in an exchange between Varun Satyam, a “marketer for technology startups” and TechCrunch’s editor-at-large John Biggs.
Satyam had approached Biggs to write articles for his clients in exchange for remuneration. And when Biggs, in an attempt to provoke him, quoted prices that were unrealistic, Satyam told him that Chong only received US$1,100.
When Outline contacted Satyam, he claimed that the offer to Biggs was part of a “social experiment.”
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Outline also contacted Chong to comment on the removal of his Forbes articles. Chong said he was remorseful for his actions; but in a bizarre twist, offered the publication payment to distribute his content. When Outline told him it was unethical, Chong again appeared “contrite”.
Apology
Chong refuted claims that he received money to write and publish articles on Forbes, although he acknowledges that he wrote them on the behalf of his clients.
In a statement to e27, he also denied any knowledge of Satyam or his “social experiments”.
A penitent Chong also sent a video [attached in the header above] explaining his actions.
“Firstly, as a journalist, what I did was wrong, I took advantage of my role as a contributor on Forbes, which is a prestigious platform, to promote my clients. There was a conflict of interest and that should have been flagged. So, I apologise to Forbes and I apologise to anybody else who was offended by me writing about my clients on Forbes,” he said.
“As a publicist, I think that what I did was I made it very clear at the start of me writing for Forbes, that I operate a PR firm and SumoStory is a PR firm that focuses on startups covered in the news,” he added.
“As a founder of a PR firm, my ultimate goal is to get my clients covered in the news. And ultimately my performance is measured by where and how much coverage I can get for my clients. It was inexcusable but a pragmatic move on my part to try to cover and promote my clients on Forbes.”
PR firms respond
e27 reached out to two PR firms. REDHILL and Asia PR Werkz, who gave us their thoughts on this episode.
“[What SumoStory] was doing is not industry practice and it is unethical. This is against CIPR Code of Conduct,” said Jacob Puthenparambil, Partner at REDHILL.
“Forbes is being careless, they see the business value of having hundreds of free writers filling up pages for free, which in turn bring in traffic and advert income. Sadly they might not be seeing or choosing not to see the harm it is causing their editorial credibility and brand,” said Puthenparambil.
But ultimately, the fault lies with SumoStory, he said. “It’s unethical to offer monetary benefits to journalists in return for editorial coverage.”
Upon viewing Chong’s video, Puthenparambil had only one thing to say:
“A journalist cannot be a publicist, and a publicist cannot be a journalist. It’s like being a judge and a lawyer at the same time.”
Anu Gupta, Associate Director of Asia PR Werkz concurred with Puthenparambil’s view.
“PR Practitioners are only facilitators and strategists in this entire chain. Our role is to advise and guide our clients on how they can build their story in the media. Our job is to not to be at the forefront and write the story for them,” said Gupta.
“Most senior PR people have good writing skills and because of their rich industry experience, do land up writing on various media platforms. The responsibility lies within us to be fair and write on topics/issues that are relevant to our industry and not promote our clients,” she said.
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Image Credit: SumoStory
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