Aug. 30, 2010
Any introduction to journalism class will tell you that a conflict of interest is a cardinal sin of journalism. It seems that a few of today’s journalists skipped that lecture.
The drug-manufacturer Pfizer is paying for 15 journalists to attend a four-day cancer seminar this October, according to an NPR report. The seminar is being hosted by the National Press Foundation in Washington, D.C., but is being sponsored by Pfizer.
The NPF, which is a non-profit organization, said that Pfizer is not controlling the content of the seminar. It also said that the seminar simply aims to educate journalists on the most recent cancer research.
Also, last year’s Pfizer-sponsored seminar did not include any representatives from Pfizer.
However, the NPF has come under fire for creating a conflict of interest. Critics, such as former University of Minnesota professor Gary Schwitzer, argue that it does not matter if Pfizer has nothing to do with the actual event. Pfizer will still have essentially paid journalists to attend the seminar.
However, Bob Meyers, president of the NPF, argued on his blog that the NPF taking money from Pfizer is like a newspaper taking money for an advertisement.
He also said that this situation may look like a conflict of interest, but actually is not.
“Nobody touches the content of our program, nobody dictates content or journalist selection, and nobody ever will,” he said.
Pfizer has also defended its sponsorship, saying that it does not expect any favoritism from the attendees. A spokesman told NPR that Pfizer would simply like to see an improvement in the “quality of cancer coverage.”
But who exactly are the “lucky” journalists who get a free trip?
They haven’t been selected yet. The NPF Web site says interested journalists must first fill out an application by Sept. 7.
NPF says it is seeking journalists who have covered various aspects of cancer, along with journalists who have covered scientific or medical topics in the past.
ANALYSIS
Unethical behavior is unenforceable behavior. It may not be illegal, but it can still make someone’s values appear to be questionable. Unethical behavior can have some negative consequences, too.
Ethical problems arise from moral dilemmas, which the textbook Doing Media Ethics defines as “situations in which we find it necessary to choose between two (or more) equally compelling, but incompatible, alternatives.”
The unethical aspect of this situation is fairly obvious: journalists who report on medicine and science are being awarded free trips from a pharmaceutical company. Either these journalists go to the seminar for free or they don’t go at all.
As the NPR article pointed out, journalists should avoid free travel and special treatment that could “compromise journalistic integrity,” according to the Society of Professional Journalists’ ethics code.
A free trip now could result in a conflict of interest later. These journalists could, intentionally or unintentionally, report some future story relating to Pfizer in a biased manner. This could stem from the fact that attendees will still know in the back of their minds that Pfizer paid for them to have a four-day trip, even if they never meet with a Pfizer representative or hear from a Pfizer-approved speaker (like both Pfizer and the NPF claim).
And what about Pfizer’s claim that it isn’t expecting anything in return for its sponsorship?
Even if Pfizer isn’t hoping for journalists to report favorably on its research or its business practices, it still has an expectation that the journalists will do something good for its industry. Pfizer conducts cancer research and develops drugs to treat cancer. So Pfizer may still indirectly benefit from its own actions.
Additionally, Meyers argument that Pfizer’s sponsorship is analogous to newspaper advertising is somewhat flawed. As mentioned before, Pfizer sponsored the event with the belief that it would improve journalists’ coverage of cancer topics. But when a company pays a newspaper for advertising space, it probably doesn’t expect the paper’s reporters to start covering the company or its industry in a better or more knowledgeable way. Besides, the advertising and editorial aspects of news organizations are usually separated. Reporters have little to nothing to do with the advertisers who are helping finance the organization.
So, the main ethical issue here is the conflict of interest that will inevitably develop from the free trips provided by Pfizer. It is hard to say if the company’s sponsorship of the seminar is blatantly unethical, but it may certainly raise some eyebrows – both inside and outside the media. In times like these, when the public has started to grow wary of the media’s truthfulness and sense of ethics, a sponsorship such as this may not have been a good idea.
– By Aisha Mahmood