Poynter on the Record

Unwitting sex workers were sent by their agencies to men known for abuse for extra cash. Sometimes prostitutes were used simply to deliver cocaine or other drugs to people. Sex workers never received screenings for AIDS or sexually transmitted diseases and, on the contrary, were often pressured by both their agencies and clients to engage in risky sexual behaviors—again for more money. Prostitution ring leaders almost always "tried" a woman personally first before hiring her out for sex with others.

For several years, "Jennifer" worked for various so-called escort services in Northwest Florida. Now, she's one of the key witnesses in a major State Attorney-led investigation to put about 10 agencies in the region out of business and about 30 owners and operators behind bars. ...

Sex Ads

The escort service classified ads in the Pensacola News Journal proclaim, "explore your fantasies," and promise, "for your party or pleasure."

Following a major bust of escort services for prostitution, Assistant State Attorney Russ Edgar wants to know, "What's the policy of the PNJ going to be now?"

Edgar, the lead prosecutor in the case, says the investigation started with the Gannett-owned daily paper's classified section that regularly includes about a dozen escort service ads.

"Not one of them was legit," Edgar says. "The paper's reasons for running them are not well thought out." ...

Kelly McBride, a Poynter Institute journalism ethics expert, told the American Journalism Review in a 2003 story that community tastes usually dictate what kind of ads run in a newspaper.

"If the community has decided that lap dancing was unacceptable, then it probably would not be acceptable to run an ad for lap dancing," she said. But, she warns that "newspapers can get into pretty dangerous territory when [they] start trying to apply moral codes to advertisements."
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