I don't really understand this process of declaring conflicts of interests. The declaration of a conflict of interest seems like at best a bare minimum requirement and one that is abused.
I see posts sometimes where they write about how great X is and then have a disclaimer of (we're owned by creators of X) as if that was good enough. I just think if you have a conflict of interest, unless the value of the news is significant, writing about X should be avoided altogether especially if it's heavy on speculation, analysis or opinion.
That's excluding a lot of people from the conversation who might have something interesting to say. For example, are you going to exclude pilots from a conversation about aviation because they have an obvious conflict of interest?
If you're an expert in a certain area, it's quite likely that it's because it's part of your job. There aren't that many people who are both impartial and knowledgeable.
I think you're misunderstanding the concept of "conflict of interest". In this case, the news story was written by the same company that the news story is about. They have a direct financial stake in the public's perception of them, and are writing the story that helps shape that same perception. That's the conflict.
If the story was about American Airlines' employee compensation practices, and it was published by the Air Line Pilots Association, then the same conflict would arise. But if the story is about aviation in general, then the conflict goes away and the pilot is a good source of expert knowledge.
>For example, are you going to exclude pilots from a conversation about aviation because they have an obvious conflict of interest?
This example is not at all like the situation with Jeff Bezo, Amazon, and The Washington Post. In situations like this, there is the perception (and often the reality) that employees of the media organization would self-censor and not write anything too negative about a company owned by someone that can fire them (or indirectly hinder their careers).
To be more specific, I am talking about journalists who work at private publishers owned by people or a company with a financial conflict of interest in a topic.
That's still preventing a lot of journalists from doing their jobs for no real reason other than a connection on an org chart. It's not like they're personally benefiting.
> I just think if you have a conflict of interest, unless the value of the news is significant, writing about X should be avoided altogether
It's a little trickier than that: Not covering something also can be beneficial. For example, what if the Washington Post omitted coverage of bad service at Amazon?
I see posts sometimes where they write about how great X is and then have a disclaimer of (we're owned by creators of X) as if that was good enough. I just think if you have a conflict of interest, unless the value of the news is significant, writing about X should be avoided altogether especially if it's heavy on speculation, analysis or opinion.