Last week, the ANA released its Media Transparency Report. The report has been framed by much of the press as a bombshell. Words like “kickbacks,” “fraud,” “unethical practices,” and even “jail time” have been seen in a variety of recent headlines.

While there might indeed be, in some select cases, unethical behavior by an agency here or there, the general finding of this report is far more mundane. The ANA and its members may be best served by focusing less on what agencies are doing and focusing more on why they are doing it. They may see that, rather than agencies being unethical, they are fighting, often well within the bounds of ethics, for survival against a continuous onslaught of client financial demands that threaten their very existence.

Read the full AdAge article here.