The  'Famous'  Orange  Soda  Story
To reporters: "Long ago and far away — well actually it was around 1979-80 — in Voluntown, Connecticut ...
I was working as a new full-time reporter for the Norwich Bulletin. One very hot July, the managing editor, who had a heck of a political bend, ordered me to cover a fund-raiser picnic for the Voluntown Democratic Town Committee (or was it Republican? I care so little about politics I can’t remember). 
I went and, man, oh man, was it sweltering. Someone there offered me an orange soda. I took it. I wrote up the most vanilla, non-biased “I don’t care” story about the fund-raiser. Within a day, a member of the opposite political party called the editor to complain about my writing a “biased” story about the picnic and no wonder since I had been “bribed” with an orange soda. I said to the editor, “This is a joke, right?” Nope. I’m not kidding.
Our lesson here? Journalists must think like the curious “Jane Q. Public,” but their behavior, ALWAYS, must be held to a higher standard. The appearance of a conflict of interest IS a conflict of interest. 
From that day forward for myself and every reporter I trained one unbendable rule:  No freebies. Register as an independent. No free tickets/entry. No free meals. No free parking. No free cup of coffee. No gift glass of water. And certainly no free can of orange soda, because it isn’t really free. 
It could cost you your integrity.
You are the standard bearer of ethics in journalism, 24/7."

Imagine my surprise when a UConn journalism student/intern was working in Putnam one summer, years ago, and when introduced to me said "OH THE ORANGE SODA STORY! That's you?!" I have an endowment set up at UConn, Ethics in Journalism (subtitle: Not an oxymoron). They were supposed to start using the Orange Soda story after I died, but well, you know. This is fine.