What would you think of me, the ProPublica editor responsible for newsroom standards, if I placed a bet on the baseball game I’m currently listening to on the radio? Probably that I’m doing something plenty of others do, and that my wallet will be lighter in a few innings.
What would you think of me if I stood to make a tidy sum based on the outcome of a news event ProPublica has been covering? You’d probably think that’s downright shady, because isn’t the job of a journalist to report the news and not make money off it?
Lest you think I’m an ethically compromised editor, you can rest easy. According to a recent update to ProPublica’s code of ethics, “no employee should wager on the outcome of news events on the prediction markets — regardless of whether or not they are involved in coverage of said event.”
ProPublica has always prohibited employees from profiting off inside information, so you may wonder why we amended our code of ethics to specifically single out prediction markets. We have not encountered any instances of this happening on our staff, but it has become harder and harder to deny the influence and reach of prediction markets beyond sports. In fact, deals between prediction markets and news organizations abound, such as Kalshi with CNN, Fox News and The Associated Press, and Polymarket with Dow Jones.
But there have also been worrying examples of these markets at play. Look to the case of a U.S. soldier involved in the ouster of Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela who was said to have made over $400,000 by betting on the mission. (He was charged with “unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction,” according to the Department of Justice, and has pleaded not guilty.) Or to the political candidates who were accused of trying to make trades on their own races. (All three received fines from Kalshi ranging from about $540 to about $6,230 and were suspended from the platform for five years.) Or even to the journalist who detailed receiving threats from gamblers trying to get him to change his report on a missile impact in Israel. (He didn’t.)
At ProPublica, it felt imperative for us to establish professional boundaries in a world where a person can have a financial stake in almost anything. Our thinking was: If one of our employees has money riding on an outcome, can a reader be sure we’re covering a story without bias?
We take your trust seriously and know that it is something to be earned and maintained. We’ve always held ourselves to high standards. The code of ethics specifically exhorts our journalists to “avoid any actions that could make a reasonable reader doubt their ability to report fairly or with neutrality on the subjects of their coverage.” We know that even the appearance of us doing anything other than working in the public interest is troubling.
When we began seeing instances of people making money off the outcome of news events, one of our concerns was that readers might assume journalists were doing the same. Even gambling on news events that ProPublica would most likely not cover, like next year’s presidential election in France, isn’t a good look for a journalist. If someone on our staff is doing that, a reader might wonder if they are betting on something closer to home or to their field of expertise.
However, we also wanted to take care to not close the door on activities that don’t pose such an existential reputational risk. A bunch of investigative journalists throwing a few dollars into an office sports pool will probably not have the public thinking we’re incapable of being fair — although some of our team allegiances might make readers think we’re gluttons for punishment. And putting a bit of money on a ballgame isn’t a huge cause for alarm. So we took care to say that “betting on sporting events (like the Super Bowl or the Kentucky Derby) and taking part in small-stakes, friendly contests (like office pools on the Oscars) are permissible when legal and when employees are not involved in coverage of those events.”
(And even though our code of ethics allows us to bet on sporting events in these cases, I don’t because I prefer to spend my money on cheap seats and stadium novelties.)
Other outlets are also tackling this issue. NPR recently issued guidance that says “editorial employees are not allowed to use prediction markets or similar sites to place bets on developments of news events, or anything else we might cover, or on things NPR controls,” including who will appear on upcoming Tiny Desk Concerts. And the New York Times’ standards editor said in a memo to staff that “betting on the outcome of news events on the prediction markets is a violation of our principles and ethical guidance and is not permitted.”
Beyond journalism, this has also gotten attention at the state and national levels. Places like Maryland and New York have put rules in place to prohibit state employees from using inside information to bet on prediction markets. And a number of lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives have called for banning members of the chamber and their staff from gambling on the platforms.
Our code of ethics isn’t immutable, and down the road we may revisit this topic and further bolster our guidelines. Or we may tackle something that isn’t even on our radar today. But we will always act with the reader in mind so you know you’re getting the truth from people who are accountable only to you. You can bet on it. Actually, maybe don’t do that.
