There is an inherent conflict of interest in journalism. Newspapers are a coorpertation of which journalists make up a small part of. Profit from newspapers comes from advertising, and there is a great deal of commercial interest regarding the advertising component of journalism. The role of the journalists may come in conflict with the commercial interests of the newspaper, and this specific incident occured in my hometown of Fort Dodge, Iowa.
The Messenger is Fort Dodge's lone major newspaper. I have worked as a sports journalists for the paper for two years now, and can recall an incident that is very relateble to the points in one of the handouts we received discussing business issues in journalism.
In this case, a conflict of interest occured when Iowa Central Community College's president at the time was involved in a scandal. An image surfaced of the president pouring a beer into a young women's mouth on a boat. The scandal erupted, and turned into national news and appeared on many promintent news sites at the national level. Later, the president resigned.
Yet, The Messenger had their hands tied in this situation. The newspapers primary source of advertising revenue overwhelmingly came from Iowa Central. If the community college stopped advertising at The Messenger, it would be a significant blow to the newspapers revenue. It would be such a large blow that the paper didn't report on the controversy despite it being reported on at the national level. To the paper's credit, they did run a letter to the editor which voiced displeasure with the paper for failing to report to the citizens. The paper also later reported on the search for a new president.
This showed a great example of the issues that arise when conflicts of interest occur within newspaper's advertising department and news department. In this case, the paper failed to serve the public due to such a large conflict of interest.
Story from Fox News on scandal
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