News vs. advertising

I received a call this morning from a man who owns a cattle ranch near Cayucos. On the ranch is a home he rents to tourists who want to experience the ranching life. Such agritourism is a new way for ranchers to make some extra money from their main asset, their land. This caller was hoping we might do a story on his home and the piece of country he offers city slickers.
We often get these kind of calls. Our local news editors, Executive Editor Sandy Duerr and myself are targeted by business people who either suggest that stories be written about their enterprises, or they offer to write special columns for our readers, usually in a specific field, like money management or medicine.
Journalistically, we cannot promote one business at the expense of not writing about others in the same field. Nor can we let one business person have a speciality column when that person's competitors would not be granted such a status. If we did allow such coverage, we would be promoting that business owner over others. Journalistically, that is unfair, and the information is suspect.
Advertising, by contrast, is all about marketing one business or specialist. Someone spends their own money to buy space in our pages for their promotion.
This is a basic concept, but it is interesting how often I get asked by readers why we cannot "do a write up" about a certain commercial enterprise. We can't because it would be the wrong thing to do.
_ Tad Weber