Conversations Matter

No, the title of the entry does not refer to the late, great TV show of the same name...but rather, it's the question that seems to plague journalism these days. Criticism abounds for perceived conflicts of interest due to the structure of most media conglomerates--nothing new, and an issue we have been sorting out for the past decade or more. But given the news of News Corp.'s unsolicited bid for Dow Jones earlier this week, our attention again is turned toward this issue. We can debate all day about whether the WSJ would remain the holy-grail business newspaper under Murdoch's ownership (especially since others are reporting that the paper is losing some steam due to its online subscription model, anyway).

But another story really got me thinking about media ownership, conflicts of interest and the impartiality of journalists (aside from Jeff Jarvis' post this morning, which was thought provoking, to say the least). PC World Editor-in-Chief Harry McCracken resigned over a story he planned to run that was killed by the publisher--due to concerns that editorial was being too harsh on products or companies that also happened to be advertisers.

On one hand, it's a clear win for McCracken (he gets to hold onto his integrity AND just earned a lot of cred for sticking to journalistic principles). On the other, it begs that same question--who's really the "boss' behind every article, feature or breaking news brief that is pushed as a must-read...and how are our clients' chances of landing in those same stories affected by the business side of media?

GigaOM has an interesting post about Google's investment in 23andMe, and whether or not there a conflict of interest involved (or multiple conflicts of interest). The post does a nice job providing the details, but the ultra brief summary is that the co-founder of 23andMe is Sergey Brin's wife.

As you can see from the GigaOM comments (and using your own common sense!), the issue is open for debate about whether or not there's a real conflict here.

But from my perspective, that's beside the point.

If I were Google, I'd avoid this deal like the plague, if only because of the potential perception of a conflict. (Remember, this is the 'do no evil' company!) Even if this deal makes strategic sense (which it does), as the GigaOM piece points out, there were another of other similar companies Google could by where there'd be no potential for conflict.

Reputation needs to be treated as one of a company's top assets. Yes, even to the point of affecting corporate strategy. While it's easy to dismiss any negative "PR" Google might get around this as a drop in the bucket, it is yet another chink in the armor of a company that has reputation and PR to thank for its dominant market position.