Conflicts of interest

There's a pretty interesting - and, at times, odd - discussion going on over at Athens Politics concerning a recent article covering the proposed redistricting written by Cristen Conger, the daughter of Athens Area Chamber of Commerce communications director Dan Conger. Publius worked with a couple of sources to confirm if this was true, and then suggested it was a conflict-of-interest for Conger to write a story in which her father was the spokesman for an organization that held a vested interest in the topic of the article.

Several posters, primarily conservative ones, cried foul and claimed Publius was dragging this girl through the mud for no good reason at all ... that this whole thing was 'petty.'

I disgree with the latter's assertion and their suggestion this is something which really is nothing. Anyone who suggests that misses the whole boat on journalism ethics, and speaking as someone who spent the majority of his professional life actually in journalism, I feel I've earned enough street cred to say that.

So, off the bat, let me say this - my fault is not with the younger Conger at all. In fact, I think she produced a very well-written and well-reported story with no signs of bias at all. Her article gave a voice to all sides in this debate, and she is to be commended for her reporting. I think she's going to have a long and successful career in journalism if she decides to pursue that as a profession.

My problem isn't even so much with the student editors at The Red & Black, though they are partially responsible. This is a student newspaper, and it's one of the ultimate learning experiences. I worked with several folks who were alums of The Red & Black and the hands-on experience they received prepared them for a career in journalism.

The problem is that one of their editorial advisers - one of the career journalists and/or instructors hired to guide them through the process - never raised a red flag over this. It's a very simple rule when it comes to journalism - you don't touch these types of scenarios with a 10,000-foot pole because something like this very fiasco is bound to crop up.

Journalism is a very, very inexact science. It's a trade, something to be honed over time. The people doing the reporting are, well, human and mistakes can be made. People don't divorce their biases when they walk through the doors - be it a beat writer for politics who is a die-hard Republican or a beat writer for Alabama football who is a die-hard Alabama fan. Because of these natural biases, a process is put in place where a team of editors choose the stories, distribute them to the appropriate reporters and then edit and evaluate the copy as it comes.

It's imperfect, but it's the best we've got.

So when something in that process goes awry - no matter how pure and sincere the reporting was (and I believe it was in Conger's case) - you get questions like this. Journalism, though imperfect, is supposed to be about striving for non-biased reporting which equally and fairly represents all sides in a story. And, in order to help reach this lofty goal, you make sure conflicts of interests like this one don't pop up.

The editors and advisers at The Red & Black should have recognized that.