The Twitter-based promotion is part of a full marketing campaign surrounding a recently redesigned Saints community on nola.com, The Times-Picayune affiliated website. The site includes articles from the newspaper’s sports writers and content provided by readers, who can create profiles and interact with one another online. Content on the site can be accessed for free.

The Twitter campaign called for the five Saints players to send out one or two tweets each, for a total of eight messages, over a ten-day period from Oct. 17 to Oct. 27. Each message encouraged the player’s Twitter followers to view Saints coverage on nola.com.

For instance, Brees’ nearly 700,000 Twitter followers received this message on Oct. 18: “Who Dats! If you didn’t join the NOLA Saints community this morning… join now!” The post included a link to the Saints page on nola.com and was retweeted, or forwarded, by 29 people.

The following day, prolific tweeter Vilma wrote: “I’ve been checking out the new #Saints community on NOLA. All my Who Dats need to join!”

Vilma’s post was retweeted by 10 of his followers.

“The intention here is to promote a new product, the Saints community on nola.com,” said John Hassell, vice president of content for Advance Digital. “It’s a new kind of space and a new kind of marketing for that space.”

The idea of paying players to promote the news site raised a red flag for media ethics educators who say it can create the appearance of an inappropriate relationship between reporters and the subjects they cover.

“On its face, that is an obvious conflict of interest,” said Al Tompkins, senior faculty for broadcasting and online at The Poynter Institute and the co-author of four editions of a “Newsroom Ethics” workbook. “The problem is you’re creating a dual relationship with the very people you’re covering.” The Poynter Institute is a school for practicing journalists.

Hassell, however, argued that because the posts include a reference to the fact that they are sponsored, or paid for, there should be no perception of conflict. Each tweet includes either the word “endorser” or the diminutive “spon,” short for sponsored — both preceded by the hashtag symbol — to indicate that the messages are advertisements.

“There’s full transparency. There’s no suggestion that the act of paid endorsement by a player reflects on the coverage of The Times-Picayune,” Hassell said. “The Times-Picayune sports department coverage of the Saints is bar none the best and there was never an intention of suggesting these paid endorsements reflected on that coverage one way or the other.”

Hassell said the Advance Digital marketing team did not consult with editors or reporters of The Times-Picayune before launching the campaign.

I don’t mean to cherry-pick, just to try and get this issue out here for us to discuss in its’ entirety…

so please just go read that whole article and contribute to the discussion if you wish.

They are paying for more advertisement in the best way possible.

Ain’t singin’ for Pepsi
Ain’t singin’ for Coke
I don’t sing for nobody
Makes me look like a joke
This note’s for you.

Much ado about nothing. This just in: It’s just sports.

It ain’t freakin’ Watergate and Jeff Duncan and Mike Triplett ain’t Woodward and Bernstein. It’s entertainment. Show bidness. There’s no grand “search for truth” here, except in the minds of “journalists” and other entertainment media types who take themselves way too seriously, and fans who take the subject matter way too seriously.

It would be one thing if Rita Benson-Leblanc were posting sponsored tweets shilling for nola dot com, and the T-P were spinning some sort of issue relating to the franchise’s deal with the state in the Saints’ favor or something like that.

This? This is more along the lines of Justin Timberlake on tee vee saying “I watch Entertainment Tonight and so should you!” So what? John Tesh reciprocates by insisting that Timberlake’s latest movie isn’t as terrible as you might (correctly) assume?

Honestly, the whole “article” about this issue (by the same people facing this so-called “ethical conundrum” in the first place) smacks as an effort to manufacture a relatively safe little mini-“scandal” for purposes of further publicity.