Bank sponsorship not affecting Philadelphia Inquirer biz section

A bank sponsorship of the Philadelphia Inquirer business section has not affected its coverage of that bank or any other business topics since it began six months ago, argued the business editor on Saturday.

Last week, the Oct. 12 Inquirer business section had a headline “Commerce overtakes Citizens” stripped across the top. The story was how a competitor had passed Citizens Bank, the sponsor of the section, as the No. 2 bank in terms of market share in the Philadelphia market. Wachovia is No. 1.

In addition, a column on the front page sponsored by the bank has run a zinger item about the bank’s CEO.

“Citizens doesn’t have any influence over the copy in the section,” said Tony Gnoffo, the Inquirer’s business editor, at the fall Society of American Business Editors and Writers conference. “I did not hear a word from anybody about any of these things. So far, it’s worked out pretty well.”

The sponsorship was widely criticized when it was launched in April as advertising encroaching on the territory of the journalists in a newspaper.

The front page of the business section has the bank’s logo on the section’s masthead and above the Philly Inc. column.

The logo on the top of the section is actually smaller than originally proposed, said Gnoffo, but the Citizens Bank ad stripped across the bottom is three inches deep — two inches larger than what was originally proposed.

Gnoffo also said that the sponsorship was presented to him by the paper’s management as a way to hire an additional staff member for the section.

“This was presented to me as an opportunity to get me another staffer,” said Gnoffo. “It was a bribe.”

Gnoffo added that he still feels uncomfortable when he sees the bank’s sponsorship on the front of the section each day, and he has met readers who think that Citizens Bank influences the business section’s content.

“The question I can’t answer is how much that damage that is doing to our credibility,” said Gnoffo. “Only time will tell. And the best thing that I can do is to continue to populate it with information that is not on the bank’s agenda.”

Gnoffo said he is surprised that more newspapers haven’t done the same thing. The Spokane Spokesman-Review announced earlier this week that it would have a sponsor on its bank section.