As a book reviewer, I’m frequently sent free books. Working at a fashion magazine a couple of years back, I scored enough free lipsticks to last me until, well, around a month ago. Last year I went on a two-day junket to Adelaide.

And I don’t think any of the above has influenced my coverage. For starters, I don’t actually write about lipstick. I never ended up writing anything from said junket either (although I do tell anyone who’ll listen about the quality of the lobster we were served with dinner). And while I usually end up enjoying the books I review more than I expected to, that I got them for free honestly plays no part in that.

Then, today, I found myself invited to (what seemed to be, at least) a glamorous three-course Melbourne Cup lunch at a hotel in CBD, by an organisation I intend to write about in the next couple of weeks.

I didn’t go. I’m sure their intentions were innocent enough, but I knew that attending would compromise my coverage of said organisation, and make it more difficult to cast the critical eye over their work that I want and need to.

You see, as others have written in the past, there is an element of betrayal to a lot of good (and important) journalism. Journalists have a responsibility to call things as they see them, even if that means writing negative things about people to whom, on a human level, they wish to do no harm.

I knew that if I took a free lunch from this organisation, writing a critical story only a week or two later would seem too great a betrayal for me to be comfortable with. So I didn’t go.

But my decision not to go got me thinking about all the stories out there that are inspired by freebies and junkets (many of the ones about lipstick and anti-ageing creams, for example). This month’s (soon to be last month’s) issue of Madison has two of them: one about their Beauty Director’s recent trip to Monaco, and one about their Living/Entertaining team’s trip to Byron Bay. Beautiful and envy-inspiring stories, to be sure, but not exactly the height of independent journalism.