The disclosure dilemma: Returning to journalism after political media advising

Abstract

The principle of transparency in journalism, including disclosure of journalistic processes and reporters’ personal interests, has been enthusiastically embraced. However there has been little focus on the possible harm disclosure can have on a reporter’s reputation. This paper reports on a selection of findings from wider inductive, qualitative research into the transition from journalism to political media advising and back again. Semi-structured interviews with twenty-one journalists who had moved between the two roles revealed the interviewees faced a dilemma about disclosing their previous political work history because of concern about inviting a suspicion of partisanship from others. In response, the interviewees adopted five key strategies to disclosing their political employment: Being ‘up front’; ‘Flying below the radar’; ‘Keeping it a secret’; ‘Selective disclosure; and, ‘Overcompensation’. Based on these findings this paper argues that the seemingly simple principle of transparency can have complex ramifications which need to be considered when advocating disclosure of interests by journalists.

Keywords:

• transparency
• journalism
• disclosure
• conflict of interest
• political PR
• partisanship
• bias

Introduction

Transparency advocates contend disclosure of journalistic processes, including a reporter’s personal interests and biases, will help improve the credibility of journalism in the eyes of the public (Hayes, Singer, & Ceppos, 2007; McBride & Rosenstiel, 2014). This trend toward transparency is not isolated to journalism practice. It is part of a wider push for greater openness and scrutiny of governments and international institutions to increase accountability in public affairs (Baume & Papadopoulos, 2013; Grimmelikhuijsen, 2012; Hood, 2006). The origins of the transparency ideal in relation to governing is commonly traced back to the work of philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the eighteenth century and his promotion of the notion of ‘publicity’, which he saw as the most effective way to prevent abuses by government (Baume & Papadopoulos, 2013; Hood, 2006; Ward, 2015). Over the past 30 years the term transparency has come to be seen as ‘indispensible for accountability and good governance, for preventing corruption and improving performance, for increasing trustworthiness and trust’ (O’Neill, 2006, p. 76).

Similarly, in journalism which has ‘wrestled with public trust’ (McBride & Rosenstiel, 2014, p. 89) the ideal of transparency has been embraced as a central value for reporting in the digital age (McBride & Rosenstiel, 2014). The emergence of countless new online information sources means the boundary between traditional acts of journalism and other types of published information is blurring (Gillmor, 2010; Hayes et al., 2007; Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2010; McBride & Rosenstiel, 2014; McNair, 2006). The rise of infotainment, the blending of opinion and straight news reporting, fact and fiction, have raised questions about the credibility of information being published (Gillmor, 2010; Hayes et al., 2007; McNair, 2006), making it difficult to tell ‘who is a journalist let alone what types of information are acting as journalism’ (McBride & Rosenstiel, 2014, p. 90). As Dan Gillmor explained it, the age of ‘information abundance’:

Feels more like a deluge, drowning us in a torrent of data, much of whose trustworthiness we can’t easily judge. You’re hardly alone if you don’t know what you can trust anymore. (Gillmor, 2010, p. xv)

Advocates for transparency argue that if reporters reveal the way they make decisions about the stories they write it will boost public trust in journalism and help the public distinguish between verified information and rumor (Gillmor, 2010; Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2010).

In the age of interactive online journalism, the ideal of transparency is also seen by advocates to addresses concerns about the contentious journalistic norm of ‘objectivity’. The objectivity ideal requires a reporter to put his or her biases to one side, remain detached, impartial and fair when reporting and guide ‘journalists to separate facts from values and report only the facts’ (Schudson, 2001, p. 150). Critics of objectivity argue that such a separation cannot be made and the inherent subjective and selective nature of journalism means objectivity is a ‘deception…promoting an external truth or ideal…that doesn’t exist’ and is unachievable (Maras, 2013, p. 1). In its stead, transparency is seen as ‘the new objectivity’ (Weinberger, 2009) allowing the reader to access source materials via hyperlinks and assess the evidence on their own without having to blindly trust that the reporter has given a fair account of events.

What we used to believe because we thought the author was objective we now believe because we can see through the author’s writings to the sources and values that brought her to that position. Transparency gives the reader information by which she can undo some of the unintended effects of the ever-present biases. Transparency brings us to reliability the way objectivity used to. (Weinberger, 2009)

For the purposes of this discussion, the concept of transparency in journalism has been roughly divided into two parts. The first is editorial transparency, which is concerned with journalists and editors being open about the decision making and production processes. The second goes beyond openness about editorial processes to include disclosure of a reporter’s personal interests, his or her preconceptions toward the story being written, their professional history, affiliations and biases (Hayes et al., 2007, p. 271). This article is primarily concerned with this latter form of disclosure, specifically a reporter’s previous work history as a political media adviser, and concern about the possible negative impact disclosing that work history could have on his or her reputation.

While the disclosure of personal interests can engender trust and inspire confidence in a person’s integrity, it can also pose a risk. In his work on conflict of interest, ethicist Michael Davis (1998) says disclosure is one of the key remedies for actual and potential conflicts of interest. However, he explained it can also invite a suspicion of bias toward that person, even if the conflict of interest no longer exists, and thereby harm the person’s reputation (Davis, 1998, p. 591). The journalists in the paper were aware of this risk and it presented some of them with a dilemma. Concern about attracting perceptions of bias if they disclosed their work history as political media advisers led them to question whether or not they should reveal that information when they returned to work in the newsroom. In response to this challenge, the interview data revealed five main strategies that were adopted by these former media advisers to manage the disclosure of their political work history and thereby minimize possible damage to their reputation when they re-entered journalism. In doing so, their reflections highlight a tension between the simple ideal of transparency and the possible risks and complexities of putting that ideal into practice.

Literature review

In the digital age when ‘everyone can be a publisher’ (Hayes et al., 2007, p. 262) the adoption of more transparent practices, as part of the broader principle of accountability, is being advocated by scholars and practitioners to help increase journalism’s credibility and stave off threats from bloggers and citizen journalists (p. 271). Hayes et al. (2007) stated the transparency principle is made up of two main forms: ‘personal disclosure’ and ‘evidentiary support’. ‘Evidentiary support’ referred to the ability of journalists to connect readers to primary information sources and supporting evidence for their stories and thereby increase the veracity of the journalist’s work in the eyes of the public. Hayes et al. (2007) argued this ability to connect to primary information sources embedded in a story also meant that journalists could provide their readers with additional information about the editorial decision making process for that story. ‘Personal disclosure’, the authors said, involved openness about a journalist’s personal interests and biases, something that has been eagerly embraced by bloggers, but less keenly adopted by reporters (Hayes et al., 2007, p. 272).

Reporters have been more reluctant to embrace this practice, the authors argued, because traditional journalists have less organisational autonomy and have been trained in the ideal of objectivity which requires the suppression of personal biases. Hayes et al. (2007, pp. 272–3) said adoption of both evidentiary and personal disclosure practices boosted journalism’s accountability through explaining editorial decision making and humanizing reporters in the eyes of the public. These benefits of transparency have been echoed by other journalism scholars. In order to maintain the trust of the public, Kovach and Rosenstiel (2007, p. 92) argued that journalists needed to be ‘presenters’ of truth as well as ‘seekers’ of truth. The best way of doing that they said was for reporters to tell the public as much as possible about where they got their information from and how they went about constructing the story.

The principle of transparency in the digital age is ‘so essential a part of how modern journalism attains credibility’ that McBride and Rosenstiel (2014, p. 2) have advocated for it to be included in a new journalism ethics for the twenty-first century. In addition to the traditional principles of truth, accuracy and fairness, the proposed new code stipulates that a journalist should include how they went about their work, acknowledge any errors, and explain the journalist’s point of view in relation to the story they are writing. Gillmor (2010) also included ‘transparency’ in his list of five key principles for creating trustworthy media. He wrote that news organizations ‘have a duty to explain’ how they go about their news work and that journalists must also be more open about their world views and motivations, just as bloggers should be required to reveal their biases (Gillmor, 2010, p. 71).

One journalism scholar, blogger and transparency advocate, who went to great lengths to achieve this on his blog, BuzzMachine, is Jeff Jarvis (2005). In what he described as an ‘obnoxious’ display of transparency (Jarvis, 2011), Jarvis (2005) declared every job and business connection he had, as well as his religious and political beliefs and the way he had voted in every US election. Despite Jarvis’ exhaustive interpretation of what personal transparency by journalists and bloggers could look like, there is no uniform approach to personal disclosure in journalism. Research shows that different levels of transparency are adopted by journalists in their use of social media, such as Twitter (Lasorsa, 2012; Revers, 2014).

In contrast to the voices championing the benefits of transparency in journalism, there is a range of literature assessing the efficacy of the transparency principle in lifting journalism’s credibility in the eyes of the public. One of the most recent contributions to this discussion has been made by Ward (2015) who traces the history of the concept from the late sixteenth century to the present. In his examination of the ideal, Ward (2015) said ‘transparency’ had become a ‘magical concept’ that is hard to argue against. The problem with that he said is ‘when norms become magic, they raise unrealistic expectations’ (Ward, 2015, p. 49). In the case of transparency the unrealistic expectation is that it will be a cure-all for issues of accountability and public trust, but in reality transparency falls short of those expectations. As an illustration of this, Ward (2015, p. 50) and O’Neill (2006, p. 75) both note that a rise in the adoption of transparency practices by public institutions has not been met with a corresponding rise in public trust.

A similar point was made by Karlsson, Clerwall, and Nord (2014) who argued that despite the enthusiasm for transparency in journalism there was little empirical evidence to prove whether it is effective in improving the standing of journalism in the eyes of the audience. Based on research involving 1320 respondents designed to test whether disclosure did affect the way stories and reporters were perceived by the public, the three researchers concluded that transparency practices had ‘almost no effect on source and message credibility’ (Karlsson et al., 2014, p. 674). Though some minor positive effects were found, primarily in relation to direct linking to primary source material, the authors did not see it as ‘revolutionizing’ journalism’s credibility in the short or longer term (Karlsson et al., 2014, p. 675). Rather than having a limited impact, Allen (2008, p. 323) suggested that disclosure of journalistic decision making processes might have the opposite effect to that being sought and unintentionally ‘increase criticism rather than understanding’. Though, the push for greater disclosure in journalism is a ‘valuable and important ideal’, Allen (2008, p. 323) argued that ‘little attention has been given to whether there is such a thing as too much transparency’ and what impact that might have. He warned that greater levels of transparency can also bring greater levels of scrutiny that ‘might in the end, run counter to the very goals they seek’ (Allen, 2008, p. 336).

In addition to literature specifically about transparency in journalism, this article draws on the work of ethicist Michael Davis (1998, 2001, 2013) about conflict of interest in the professions. In his examination of conflict of interest he described the benefits and problems of disclosure as a remedy for conflict of interest. On the one hand, he explained, the act of disclosure ‘prevents deception …and avoids betrayal of trust’ (Davis, 1998, p. 593), but on the other it can also ‘harm the reputation…of the individual in question’ by inviting others to question the reliability of his or her judgment (Davis, 1998, p. 591). It is this tension between the benefits and possible risks of disclosure identified by Davis (1998) that lies at the heart of the dilemma discussed in this paper.

Approach

The aim of this article is to provide a greater understanding of the complexities surrounding the journalistic ideal of transparency, particularly in relation to the disclosure of a journalist’s personal interests. This paper has been written from a phenomenological perspective and reports on a selection of findings that emerged from wider inductive, qualitative research of journalists’ perceptions of their lived experience of making the career transition from journalism to political media advising and back again (Fisher, 2014). The motivation for that wider research grew out of the author’s own experience of moving between these two roles. Based on the contributions of practitioners who have experienced this particular career phenomenon, this paper examines the way journalists perceived and managed issues of disclosure about their previous political employment when they entered journalism after working as a political adviser.

Drawing on the philosophical traditions of phenomenology, hermeneutics (Heidegger, 1927/2008; Husserl, 2002) and symbolic interactionsim (Blumer, 1969/1998) the aim of the wider study and this paper has been to document journalists’ perceptions of their experience shifting between the two roles and treat the first-person perspective of that experience on its own terms. This perspective is useful in helping to understand the diversity of the interviewees’ perceptions of their experience of making the transition from political media advising to journalism and navigating their way through managing the dilemma of disclosure about their previous employment.

To identify journalists who had been both journalists and political media advisers, purposive and snowballing sampling techniques (Bryman, 2008, pp. 458–9) were used. This resulted in twenty-one semi-structured, in-depth interviews being conducted about their individual experiences of moving back and forth between the two roles. An ‘aide memoire’ (Minichiello, Aroni, Timewell, & Alexander, 1995, p. 83) was used to guide the direction of the interviews, which included discussion of conflict of interest and the way in which the practitioners managed their return to journalism. In recognition of the value of individual perception, each of the interviewees in the study and this paper has been as treated as an ‘expert’ or ‘lay theorist’ (Furnham, 1988) based on their ‘intense experiences’ as ‘key operators’ in the career transition under investigation (Herbst, 1998, p. 31).

In analyzing the interview data, a general inductive approach was taken (Bryman & Burgess, 1994; Thomas, 2006), which involved a process of multiple close readings of the data, during which categories, key themes, commonalities and differences in the material were identified, interpreted and selections made, while simultaneously working back and forth between the data, extant theory and literature. In doing so, the process of analysis drew out the ‘common themes’ and ‘unique stories’ (Karp, 1996, p. 12) that highlighted the most compelling conceptual stories.

Findings & discussion

Each of the interviewees in this paper was forced to confront the issue of whether to disclose their previous employment as a political media adviser when they attempted to return to the newsroom. In deciding if and how they would disclose that information, the transcripts revealed five main approaches to transparency were adopted by the interviewees when they re-entered journalism to deal with this professional challenge. Those approaches have been categorized based on the willingness and or hesitation the interviewees expressed toward disclosure: Being up-front; Flying below the radar; Keeping it a secret; Selective disclosure; and, Overcompensation. As will be discussed, the willingness or reluctance of the interviewees to disclose their previous political employment was influenced by the level of concern they had about inviting perceptions of partisanship and bias and causing possible harm to their professional reputation. Each of the five approaches is described below.

1. Being up-front

‘Being up-front’ describes a confident approach taken by several of the interviewees to simply disclose their previous employment in a politician’s office. This was seen by those practitioners as the best way of tackling possible accusations of conflict of interest and perceptions of bias once they became journalists¹. By ‘being up-front’, the interviewees hoped to avoid a ‘betrayal of trust’ (Davis, 1998, p. 593) by revealing their employment history to the people relying on their judgment, namely the editor and the public. In doing so, ‘being up-front’ allows the audience to ‘adjust their reliance accordingly’ and take the journalist’s comments with a grain of salt, or seek a second opinion (Davis, 1998, p. 593). By being up-front the journalist avoids deception and increases their credibility in the eyes of the audience. One senior newspaper columnist put it this way:

Firstly… I am up front. When I put my bio on the website or write for someone, where it is relevant to a piece that I write, I chuck in my personal experience up front. Yes I have worked for a number of liberal politicians, have even been a member of that party. What do you want to do? Put me up against a wall and shoot me? I have that and it gives me an enormous insight into the way politics works …and I am not ashamed of it. I am proud of it in fact… So I think that is the best way to attack it: to be completely open and honest with your readers.

Instead of damaging his career, the journalist said his experience working in conservative politics had become a professional strength and part of his ‘shtick’ in his new role as a columnist, editorial and opinion writer and had allowed him to develop an audience attracted to his political views. Not only had the interviewee worked as a political media adviser, he had also run as a candidate for the Liberal Party. Because of this overt display of partisanship, he said he accepted that he could not return to straight political news reporting: ‘For appearances, I wouldn’t do that’. However, none of the other interviewees ran for political office and less than half became political party members and did not consider themselves to be partisan. For those people, ‘being up-front’ was not a straight forward option because of the risk of being perceived as partisan and the harm that could cause to their reputation as journalists. Instead, they adopted more discrete approaches to disclosure of their previous political employment.

2. Flying below the radar

‘Flying below the radar’ describes an approach taken by other interviewees who did not want to draw attention to the fact they had recently worked for a politician. They said they were not hiding it, but they were not volunteering the information either. Two of the interviewees described their disclosure strategy this way:

I kept my move very low key…I didn’t tell the press gallery I was coming back…People in my bureau knew, but there wasn’t a lot of comment on it.

If anyone asks me I’m never backward…I mean I don’t advertise it.

By not advertising it, they adopted a low-visibility strategy to disclosure because of their concerns about possible to harm to reputation resulting from perceptions of bias, and possible accusations of conflict of interest.

3. Keeping it a secret

Instead of taking a low profile, one interviewee attempted to keep her past hidden in a bid to avoid the perception of being seen as partisan and thereby harming her reputation. When the interviewee returned to work for her former employer, she did not tell her hiring editor that she had been a political media adviser:

Very few people know that I worked… for the Labor Party… I don’t even know if the editor of the newspaper knows. I sort of really kept it pretty much to myself.

Researcher: Why did you do that?

Well, I don’t want to be type cast. I guess I think I’m doing a journalist’s job and I’m doing that with my journalist’s cap on … but I would be prepared to bring it up if there was something there, if there was either an appearance of conflict of interest or where there was genuine conflict of interest.

However, because the interviewee actively avoided reporting on politics when she returned to journalism, she said her previous employment as a media adviser had not presented her with an ethical challenge. In the areas she now reported on, the interviewee felt her political experience was not relevant and therefore did not feel under any obligation or pressure to disclose her political work history.

4. Selective disclosure

The question of relevance regarding their previous employment as political advisers was central to the approach taken by many of the interviewees. For the majority of the practitioners, their time in politics took place more than a decade ago. In discussing the issue of disclosure, several of them felt their employment as a political staffer was no longer relevant to their contemporary journalism role and therefore they did not want to invite an unnecessary perception of bias, and thereby harm their professional reputation by disclosing that information if it was not relevant. For instance, at the time of interview, one of the journalists had not included his work history as a political staffer in his online workplace profile. His employer knew of his political work history, but the reporter said he had not disclosed it on the website because he did not consider it was relevant to his current role and did not want to alienate sections of the public by revealing it:

I don’t want my audience to look at me any differently… because everyone has their pre-formed political views and I don’t want to ostracize half the audience because I once worked for a Liberal [Party] government. I want them to accept me on my performance as a presenter or journalist without any preconceived notion on their part… I think if I presented myself as a political journalist or analyst with a political role it’s far more relevant. In my current role I don’t think it’s relevant to what I do at all, but you know, as soon as that appears on your CV people might think differently of you.

However, in the context of an individual story where he could be accused of having a conflict of interest, the reporter did declare his previous employment as a media adviser. When he was required to do a story about one of the politicians he had worked for, the reporter explained that ‘in the context of a longer, more personal profile piece it needed to be included’.

What these different approaches demonstrate is the ambivalence that the interviewees felt about disclosing their time as political advisers once they returned to journalism. It is an ambivalence caused by a tension between the benefits and risks of disclosure identified by Davis (1998). On the one hand disclosure of interests can avoid deception and help build trust with those who rely on the person’s judgment, such as the audience, but it can also undermine trust in the reporter by inviting a suspicion that he or she has become partisan as a result of being employed as a political media adviser, and therefore rendered their judgment on political matters unreliable.

This tension between possible reputational harm and disclosure of their previous political employment also points to interviewees’ desire to be seen as ‘objective’ non-partisan practitioners who are able to put their personal beliefs and biases to one side. Trained in the journalistic norms of independence and objectivity the interviewees were wary of disclosing personal information that might colour people’s perception of their professionalism and no longer consider them to be impartial. This adherence to the norm of objectivity was identified by Hayes et al. (2007, p. 272) as one of the reasons why journalists were less open to modes of personal disclosure than bloggers, who were not bound by organizational constraints and journalistic norms.

5. Overcompensation

The fifth approach to dealing with the dilemma of disclosure was ‘overcompensation’. When the interviewees returned to journalism after media advising, not all of them returned to political reporting. Several actively avoided political journalism and chose to report on unrelated areas, such as international news. However, those who did return to political reporting said they strived to be balanced in their reporting and were mindful of the risk of overcompensating in a bid to counter any possible perception of bias from the audience, their peers and politicians of a different persuasion:

After twelve months being back in the gallery, I felt OK, fine, I have proved my credentials. I have taken my time to be seen to be balanced. I can relax. No one has accused me of bias.

I am very conscious of where I think there is a conflict and acknowledging it to myself and really trying to balance things. To try and step outside and to ask myself ‘am I making an impartial judgement here? – Am I dealing with this issue any differently than I would deal with an issue that didn’t involve someone I knew in politics or some party position that I personally have some sympathy for? More of the issue here is I might be harder on someone that I know or on a Labor Party position and I have to ask myself ‘am I being too hard? Am I putting too much of the opposite counter argument in an effort to be balanced? Am I overcompensating?’ I have had that going on in my head about some of the decisions I have made.

Certainly early on …I was being scrupulously fair. I don’t think I was overcompensating. Although some people in the Labor Party thought I was. You do feel an increased pressure on you to be fair and even-handed. If you are going to make criticism, especially commentary, about the conservative side of politics, then it has to be soundly based. It can’t just be a rant or something like that.

Yeah, certainly compensating. If I was doing a story …and it was not a good story for the government I would certainly think ‘OK, have I got that right? Have I covered myself by making sure I’ve got the corresponding view’ and, as I say, the test of that is that I never had to deal with any complaints. Now that could be that I over compensated too much. I don’t know.

These candid reflections from the interviewees reveal a strong perception of being under increased scrutiny when they returned to political reporting after working for a politician. Because of this they said they were aware of the risk of overcompensating in their reporting to counter any expectation of bias or partisanship from the audience, their journalism colleagues and other political staffers. This risk of overcompensation was identified by Gladstone (2011, p. 114) who argued that one of the benefits of disclosure was that it can increase a reporter’s incentive ‘to be scrupulously fair’. However, that incentive can also be undermined if the journalist reacts to the heightened scrutiny ‘by suspending all judgment or overcompensating with fake balance that distorts coverage’ (Gladstone, 2011, p. 114).

By injecting the distortion of overcompensation into his or her work, the journalist’s attempt to appear more credible by countering possible perceptions of partisanship is ultimately undone. This risk of distortion through overcompensation and the possible damage to the reporter’s reputation, points to Allen’s (2008, p. 323) argument, that the act of transparency might unintentionally have the opposite effect of the one being sought and ‘increase criticism rather than understanding’ of the journalism process, its practitioners and the complexity of the act of disclosure.

Based on the transcripts, the issue of disclosure of previous political employment was clearly perceived as more complex by the interviewees than simply including it on their curriculum vitae. As the interviewees said: ‘I don’t want to be type cast’, ‘I don’t want my audience to look at me any differently… I don’t want to ostracize half the audience’ because they once worked for a politician. On the face of it, a reporter including his or her political work history in their CV seems simple enough. As a single entry in a list of previous occupations it would bluntly convey the position title, job description and the period of employment. However, it would not convey the contextual circumstances of the employment, such as the journalist’s motivation for taking the job and the impact the experience had on his or her perceptions of politics and the politician he or she worked for. However, that simple blunt entry on a CV could invite the suspicion that the journalist might have become partisan and therefore breached the journalistic ideal of independence and could now be biased in his or her reporting. In some cases that might be true, but in others it might not. As one interviewee explained it:

It’s so hard to generalise. There are people I know who have left being press secretaries and have left with a burning desire to kick out the government they were working for because they were so corrupt… In short, what I am saying is that there is an assumption that if you have stopped being a press secretary for the government that you are still going to carry around a candle for it and that’s not really true. It’s not always true in every respect. What’s important is that it is different in each experience.

It is the absence of contextual understanding of individual circumstances that makes it easy for people outside of the situation to assume a simple position of moralism or judgmentalism and suspect the former adviser-turned journalist of partisanship. Because of that risk, some of the interviewees opted not to advertise their time as political staffers. However, choosing not to disclose information is also risky, especially in an online environment. The decision about what personal information to disclose can be taken out of an individual’s hands, such as anonymous online users being ‘outed’ or ‘doxxed’ by others (Jurgenson & Rey, 2013, p. 69). Attempts to keep certain information private can even lead to greater publicity, a phenomenon Jurgenson and Rey (2013, p. 71) referred to as the ‘Streisand effect’ after an attempt by celebrity Barbara Streisand to have photos of her house taken off the internet, which inadvertently made the images go viral. If the information the individual wanted to keep hidden is revealed, then the individual also runs the risk of betraying the trust of those who were relying on their judgment and thereby undermining their credibility and damaging their reputation.

The interview data revealed yet a further complication of disclosure, that being, a perception of an un-even playing field or a double standard. By double standard some of the interviewees said they perceived different levels of accountability were applied to reporters who had previously worked as political media advisers and reporters who had strong personal political leanings but had not been employed by a politician. Some of the interviewees perceived themselves to be more vulnerable to suspicions of bias and partisanship because they had worked as political staffers, whereas other reporters with undeclared sympathies for particular causes or political leanings, would remain unchallenged.

I have thought about this quite a bit before I came back in and my view is there are two important elements. One is that all journalists carry their own ideological baggage – though many of them who have never worked for any political party have extremely political views and I see it coming through in their coverage sometimes and I don’t like it – but they tell you and their audiences that they are completely political neutral. They are neutered. They are political eunuchs, which is a non-sense. Some journalists are like that. You really wouldn’t know. They are just straight up and down and good on them. But there are a lot of political journalists who pretend to be political eunuchs and we all know that they are not.

Some of the interviewees argued that because these journalists had not disclosed their personal political leanings, they did not feel a pressure to be ‘scrupulously fair’ (Gladstone, 2011) in their reporting and compensate for their personal beliefs because no one was watching them suspiciously, so they were free to push their own agenda through their journalism. This attracted criticism from some of the interviewees who felt it was wrong for reporters to use their position for personal advocacy, something they perceived other political reporters doing:

Everything about (that journalist) would tell you (their) opinion about a certain issue. ‘Oh, this is terrible, how could Labor do this?’ Save it for a dinner party… If you want to be an activist join a lobby group. Don’t masquerade as a news journalist to press your personal views. Maybe that’s why people would look at somebody like me and say he shouldn’t have been allowed to be a journalist. All I can say is that is never what I was doing as a news journalist. After years of being acculturated into it, I think I get the objectivity required to do a news story.

However, because the journalist referred to in the interviewee’s comment had not worked for a politician, the interviewee believed that reporter had not faced the same level of scrutiny that he did. Whether the reporter did or did not face the same degree of scrutiny is irrelevant. The purpose here is not to establish the truth of the interviewee’s perception. The role of the above reflections is to demonstrate some of the complexities around the act of disclosure, such as the perception of a double standard around the declaration and concealment of personal interests by journalists and different levels of scrutiny that were perceived to be applied.

The issue of a double standard points to an important question about how the ideal of transparency should be implemented. What information should reporters disclose? Should there be a uniform requirement for all journalists to disclose every bank share, job and voting intention, like the approach taken by Jeff Jarvis (2005)? And what does it mean once the reporter has declared that information? Does it mean they can then go and report in a biased manner with a clear conscience simply because they have been open about their personal beliefs and interests? According to Ward (2015) the act of transparency alone is not enough. It does not trump the other central journalism norms of accuracy, fairness and independence. Ward (2015, p. 55) argued that independence in journalism should not be replaced by transparency because it ‘insists that journalists not let allegiances and sources weaken their commitment to independent journalism. Independence, not transparency, distinguishes journalism and propaganda’. This is echoed by Gladstone (2011, p. 114), who argued that ‘reporters who reveal themselves still have a duty to report responsibly’, not just disclose their biases and then disregard the other principles of ethical journalism practice.

The question about implementation of the transparency ideal through the disclosure of personal interests goes beyond debate about what information a journalist should reveal about him or herself. It also includes questions about the practical mechanics of making the disclosed information available to the public. For instance, online based journalists can easily provide a hyperlink to a list of disclosures – much like Jeff Jarvis’ (2005) entry ‘About Me & Disclosures’ on his blog BuzzMachine – because of online technology. However, it is not so easy for traditional television and radio reporters broadcasting live from the field to alert the audience to their previous employment history, biases and preconceptions about the story they are reporting on. As Ward (2015, pp. 51–2) described, there are many methods of implementing transparency in journalism, including ‘about’ pages, explanatory boxes, links to background information, primary sources, interviews, and live streaming of editorial meetings. Despite this range of approaches, Ward (2015, p. 56) said journalists and ethicists still need to be ‘specific’ about what is required. The lack of a uniform approach, he argued, needs further research with a view to developing ‘concrete guidelines on how much weight to give transparency in different types of stories, and in different forms of journalism’ (Ward, 2015, p. 56). No matter what method or methods are finally adopted across the different media platforms, ultimately every reporter will have to face the personal dilemma and professional challenge of deciding what information he or she wants to disclose or conceal about their interests and biases, their approach to journalism and the story at hand. Even if a uniform implementation framework is established in the future, questions still remain about the efficacy of acts of transparency on increasing audience trust in journalism, an area that needs more research in the future (Hayes et al., 2007; Karlsson et al., 2014; Ward, 2015).

Conclusion

This paper has argued that while the push for greater transparency and disclosure of personal interests is designed to lift levels of public trust in journalism and journalists in the digital age, it can also pose a dilemma for journalists about what information they wish to reveal and conceal. For the journalists in this paper who had worked as political media advisers, the decision to disclose their previous political employment was embraced by one journalist who considered ‘being up-front’ about his political experience and leanings as a professional advantage. However, others perceived the act of disclosing their work history as a political media adviser as inviting perceptions of partisanship and thereby risking damage to their reputations once they returned to journalism. As one interviewee explained, while some journalists might become and remain partisan in response to their experience of working for a politician, others will not. Despite this variation in individual experience, the same generalized suspicion of bias might be applied, regardless of whether the reporter is partisan or not.

In dealing with this challenge, the interviewees adopted five main approaches to personal disclosure: Being ‘up front’ about their past employment; ‘Flying below the radar’; ‘Keeping it a secret’; ‘Selective disclosure’; and, ‘Overcompensation’. In an online environment, where private information can be made public, choices about what personal information to reveal or conceal are even more important. It must be stressed that this paper does not argue against the broad ideal of transparency in journalism and the practice of disclosure of personal interests by journalists. It does however suggest that greater consideration needs to be given to the possible negative impacts the act of disclosure can have on individual journalists, such as the risk of possible harm to reputation, and the reluctance that can engender in some journalists to embrace the principle of transparency. As reflected in the comments of the journalists in this paper, concern about perceptions of partisanship and damage to reputation can result in some reporters choosing to be ‘up-front’ about their personal interests and biases and others preferring to ‘keep it a secret’.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Caroline Fisher http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7443-3787

Acknowledgements

This article is derived from the author’s Ph.D.: From ‘watchdog’ to ‘spin-doctor’: An examination of the transition from journalist to parliamentary media adviser and back again.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Caroline Fisher

Caroline Fisher, PhD, is a lecturer in journalism and political communication at the University of Canberra, Australia. Prior to academia, Caroline was a news reporter/producer for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and a former ministerial media adviser to the Hon. Anna Bligh in the Beattie Labor Government in Queensland. Her research interests include political media advising, advocacy in journalism, conflict of interest in journalism, and the intersection of journalism and public relations.

Notes

1. For more on conflict of interest by media advisers once they return to journalism see Fisher, C. (2015) (in press) Managing conflict of interest: Shifting between political PR and journalism, Journalism Practice. doi:10.1080/17512786.2015.1027786