Conflict of Interest

Andrew Selhorst
as330215@ohio.edu

Conflict of interest, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, is "a situation in which the concerns or aims of two different parties are incompatible." One of the readings from class, from the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication Media Ethics Resource Library, states that a conflict of interest "occurs when a professional has interests, usually either professional or personal that come into conflict with another obligation." In other words, a conflict of interest occurs when one party would receive opposite results from something happening than another. Conflict of interest is something that is important to consider in journalism because it often times can determine whether or not we should run a story, or how exactly the story should be run. 

Personal gain is something that can be seen as positive in journalism. However, when there is a conflict of interest, another stakeholder could receive negative results from running a story. This is important to know, because we as journalists must consider all outcomes that may occur based on our actions. We need to consider all stakeholders involved when it comes to running a story, and we must make the ethical decision to choose whatever action provides not only the best outcome for us, but the least damaging to others.

Conflict of interest can be tied back to an earlier blog post, the one about truth. When faced with a conflict of interest, we may be tempted to manipulate our stores in a way such as to leave out certain details or information from the story. However, when we talk about being ethical, we talk about the truth. And truth means the whole truth, and not a distorted version of whatever that may be. Being honest and truthful is one of the core values of what it means to make ethical decisions in journalism, and it is not something that we can simply look over because we have a conflict of interest.

Another important concept to remember regarding conflict of interest is personal involvement. Sometimes a reporter can have some sort of involvement in whatever he or she is covering. This article highlights the great amount of involvement that ESPN has with the stories they report on. Journalists must be sure to not let any form of involvement or bias affect they way they report the story, and it is very important for them to remember to stay as unattached as a reporter as they would with any other story that they have no connection to.

In conclusion, a conflict of interests occurs when two parties have something different to gain from an occurrence. We as journalists must recognize when we have a conflict of interest, and need to make ethical decisions on what we will do to solve the conflict. Conflicts on interest can occur quite often, and it is our duty to make the responsible decision. We must leave out any personal gain that we may receive, or any personal involvement that we may have to a story in order to do this.