The media and arbitrary ethics

Someone from a legacy Indian media outlet called me recently to ask me to write an article on Indian space within five days, and for free. They expected me to agree to commit to it then and there itself. I said I’d have considered contributing but the timeline is too short and I have other things to do so I’ll pass. They insisted again, as if it’s a demand for some reason. I said okay, this short timeline could work if you republish one of my articles from my blog. They vehemently said no, calling it to be an ethical issue.

Wait, what?!

Of all the shady or questionable practices that media outlets follow, including ingesting notorious amounts of ads, intentionally not providing or stripping off attribution links for information sources, not naming the research paper being covered, and normalizing delayed payments, republishing an article is where they draw an arbitrary line in the name of ethics?

In any case, how on Earth is republishing an article with a linkback to the original with the author’s permission an ethical issue? Outlets republish stories often, and my articles have been republished with credit by The Space Review, The Planetary Society, The Wire Science, and more. So why do some outlets like the one that called me have an issue with it especially when they’re the ones expecting writers to do the work for them and on their time demands?

I suspect that it’s because many media outlets operate so opaquely like this on multiple fronts, and legacy publications think they’re above all, that people have lost trust in the media and are instead more than happy to trust social media influencers whom they can see.