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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, March 15, 2002

NBC weatherman's bosses say his ad work is OK

By Peter Johnson
USA Today

Al Roker is no Tom Brokaw.

But should the NBC News "Today" weatherman — who increasingly conducts sit-down interviews on the top-rated morning show — be held to ethical standards that guard against a newsman such as Brokaw being perceived as having a conflict of interest?

Or should Roker, who falls into a gray category — weatherman/interviewer/entertainer — be allowed to endorse products on TV and in newspapers? That's what some people are asking in light of two ads that Roker has appeared in recently.

During the Super Bowl, Roker was in a TV ad for Lipton tea. On Sunday, Roker appeared in a full-page ad for Weatherproof Garment Co. that ran in a fashion section of the New York Times.

In it, he's wearing a Weatherproof jacket and holding his open hands on either side of his face. A caption reads, "I'm weatherproofed."

Roker, who is paid about $2 million a year for his work on "Today," won't talk about his moonlighting.

But Jonathan Wald, executive producer for "Today," said Roker's contract allows him to do advertisements that are approved by NBC. Wald sees no ethical problem: "Al would never do anything to create a conflict of interest, and we would never do anything to put him in a position of creating a conflict."

But how can viewers, knowing that Roker takes money to endorse products, know that he's not being paid by interview subjects to lob soft questions on "Today"?

Keith Woods, who teaches ethics at the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists, isn't so sure.

Since Roker straddles the line between news and entertainment, the ethical line may be "a little bit further removed from the clear horizon that exists for the average journalist, but it's out there," Woods says. That said, "We do not associate people in commercials with anything serious, and that is a core perception within journalism: You want people to view what you are doing as important and serious."

Roker's predecessor, Willard Scott, has appeared in ads for years and still appears on "Today." But Scott doesn't conduct sit-down interviews like Roker does. Other members of "Today"'s cast — Katie Couric, Matt Lauer and Ann Curry — are prohibited from endorsing products.

ABC News and CBS News prohibit employees from attaching their names to ads. One exception is Charles Osgood, who continued to do ads on CBS Radio after he became anchor of "CBS Sunday Morning."