To Accept Free Stuff or Not to Accept Free Stuff?

Tickets. T-shirts. Meals. In TV, you get a lots of offers for freebies. Should you take it?

Let me start by saying I have a lot of good friends, good people, who disagree with me, think I'm off my rocker. That said, my feeling is this-- avoid even the appearance of impropriety. I don't like to take anything the general public wouldn't be offered. We know you wouldnt do a segment on the gym just because you got a free membership-- but what if you wanted to get an exercise expert, would you feel like you needed to call that gym? Slippery slope. Lot easier to make those decisions without having accepted stuff. 

Case in point. I did dirty restaurant reports for years. Once a month we did a restaurant that got a 100. Since it was usually lunchtime when we shot there, we'd eat there at our expense. One time I overheard a customer-- who saw us eating-- say oh now I know why they are here, implying we did a shoot for a free lunch. We started eating elsewhere after that. 

The media already has a bad rep. Why make it worse ?