A conflict of interest in the media can be a number of things. It is, by definition, a situation in which the concerns or aims of two different parties are incompatible. In terms of the media, conflict of interest is a situation in which an internal auditor, who is in a position of trust, has a competing professional or personal interest. Such competing interests can make it difficult to fulfill his or her duties impartially. A conflict of interest exists even if no unethical or improper act results.
Alan Kohler was involved in an ethical predicament after working for two different news agencies. He worked the ABC originally, and then also took on a role at News Limited. This is an obvious case of conflict of interest, since he cannot serve two masters at once. In addition to this, News Limited is also the ABC’s number one competitor. Since they are such obvious opponents and do not work together whatsoever, Kohler was faced with the issue of being fair and impartial to both roles. Given a story that could be covered by both agencies, certain details could be omitted from one agency or the other. This is the problem with taking on two roles that are identical but at opposing companies.
All the way back in 2007, Monica Attard from Media Watch questioned; “How big will Alan Kohler’s outside business interests get, before the ABC can’t ignore that potential [for a conflict of interest]?”. And years later the answer has proven to be up to, but not limited to, $8 million. The deal that was made between AIBM and News Corporation Ltd. (the parent company of News Limited), was estimated to be around $30 million, with $8 million of that being paid to Kohler directly.
ABC has explicitly called this a conflict of interest, and even described it as an open and shut case. Section 1.4 of ABC’s editorial policy clearly says that; “External activities of individuals undertaking work for the ABC must not undermine the independence and integrity of the ABC’s editorial content”, something that ABC fully believes that Kohler’s work does, in fact, undermine the independence and integrity of the ABC.
Personally, I agree with the the evidence my research provided; this is an example of conflict of interest in the media. It’s bad enough that Kohler took on an additional role similar to one he already filled at ABC, but the fact that he took it at their biggest competitor opens a window for an extreme case of corruption and wrongdoing to both companies. Finding a connection while researching this story was easy, since I am from the United States and conflict of interest cases happen frequently. The news is supposed to be unbiased with the main goal of providing its audience with information about what is going on in the world, regardless of and excluding opinion over fact. However, if you are familiar with the USA’s Fox News Agency, you know how corrupt it can get in the world of media. Fox News is one of the most popular and prolific sources of news in the States, however it cannot always be trusted. Since Trump’s election into office, Fox has been brown nosing the President. They report on anything and everything that relates to the President successes while minimizing his shortcomings and ignoring the people that are against him. In addition to this, Trump has a very public and obnoxious vendetta against Fox’s opposing agencies, such as CNN, ABC and the NBC. If you scroll through the President’s twitter you are guaranteed to find him tweeting about these agencies with the hashtag “#FakeNews”. He is so over the top about this that CNN has actually created a link that shows all of the President’s tweets, providing a direct look at how biased and ignorant he can be towards the news.
These two examples may seem different, and they are, but they are both cases of conflict of interest. In Kohlers situation, he is dealing with the conflict between two opposing companies and trying to appeal to them both equally, while maintaining monetary gain. In Fox News’ case, they are providing limited news to appeal to the President. These are both cases of the news being corrupt, one is by a single person while the other is an entire agency.
As my connection shows, Kohler is not a unique case. This problem occurs in media agencies around the world. The reason why conflict of interest is avoided is to protect not only the original organization, but also the people that consume the media. Media should be unbiased facts that the audience can take in and digest themselves, how they feel about it or react to it should not be predetermined. Organizations also need the protection when it comes to reporting and employees; such as Alan Kohler. He has the opportunity to favor one agency over the other, something that jeopardies the ABC while also proving to be a very large risk for News Limited. All that News Limited has over the ABC when it comes to employing Kohler is the money they’re giving him.
Conflict of interest can be a tough thing to pursue legally. Moving forward, I would like to see more strenuous guidelines on how to avoid and how to deal with a conflict of interest. It is not fair to the audience that consumes media, or the organizations that provide it. Please discuss below what you think not only about this case in particular, but conflict of interest as a whole. Do you have any experiences with it? What would you like to be done?
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