Sean Penn interviewed El Chapo (Credit: Rolling Stone, screenshot)

Actor Sean Penn interviewed Mexican drug kingpin El Chapo, aka Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, for Rolling Stone magazine.

And El Chapo got pre-publication approval of the article on him. In a disclosure statement atop Penn’s article, published online Jan. 9 in the days following El Chapo’s arrest, Rolling Stone said:

“Disclosure: Some names have had
 to be changed, locations not named, and an understanding was brokered with the subject that this piece would be submitted for the subject’s approval before publication. The subject did not ask for any changes.”

Penn wrote that he was not paid for the article and that Mexican actress Kate del Castillo helped set up the interview. Penn wrote that he pitched the idea of interviewing El Chapo after El Chapo’s escape last year and Rolling Stone OKed it. The interview was conducted while El Chapo was on the run and published shortly after his capture.

iMediaEthics has asked Rolling Stone why it granted the pre-publication approval and what the explicit terms of the arrangement with El Chapo were.

The New York Times noted Penn’s interview with El Chapo is “believed to be the first [El Chapo] has given in decades.”

On Twitter, the scandal surrounding Rolling Stone‘s 2014 story “A Rape on Campus,” which has been retracted and is the subject of more than one lawsuit against the magazine, was brought up.

Below, see tweets about the Rolling Stone El Chapo article.

Rolling Stone sets standard journalist ethics aside to get story that will attract enormous attention. What could go wrong?

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) January 10, 2016

https://twitter.com/jonlovett/status/686018067344658433

https://twitter.com/socarolinesays/status/686012317276987392

https://twitter.com/joelcampbell/status/686022236529020928

https://twitter.com/TheFix/status/686012898372628480

So I guess Rolling Stone has hijacked my journalism ethics class next week. Again.

— Jason Martin (@jmart181) January 10, 2016

https://twitter.com/socarolinesays/status/686014061012729857

https://twitter.com/TheFix/status/686014114221690880

https://twitter.com/joshuafoust/status/686014250591084544

https://twitter.com/leahfinnegan/status/686014639503716352

So will Sean Penn play Sean Penn in the movie he'll make about El Chapo trying to make a movie about himself? https://t.co/aqhymDmD6W

— Andrew Wallenstein (@awallenstein) January 10, 2016

Yes. +1. https://t.co/oG10P8pJZC

— On the Media (@onthemedia) January 10, 2016

Which is to say, how many news orgs, if they had the chance, would've done the same thing? How many would've rejected those terms?

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) January 10, 2016