Whether you agree with this path of least resistance and prefer some other course of action so as to amicably resolve the potential problem, there is one thing you should most certainly not do: act shady about being Facebook friends with your students by telling them to keep it on the down-low or, worse, set up fake accounts altogether in order to befriend students.

A couple of teachers in England apparently missed this policy memo and are now being investigated for maintaining inappropriate relationships with students via Facebook. One teacher who, incredibly, exchanged comments with a former pupil about posing for erotic photos over a webcam received a 12-month suspension. Another teacher received a reprimand for using a decoy account in order to interact with students via Facebook.

This isn’t exactly breaking news because everybody knows there are creeps on the Internet. That’s not even to say that these teachers are explicitly creeps; they could very well be decent humans who just happened to make some very questionable decisions this time. It happens. It’s happened in the United States, it’s surely happened elsewhere, and it’s a pretty safe bet that it will continue happening in places. But if you’re doing something that makes you self-conscious enough to try to obfuscate your actions, then what you’re doing is more than likely not a good thing.

In the world of journalism, there’s this thing called a breakfast test. It goes like this: when determining whether the material you’re about to publish is appropriate, you ask yourself, “Would this be too shocking for someone to read while eating breakfast in the morning?” The metric here is that if the material is offensive enough to cause someone to choke on their Cheerios or spit out their bacon, then you probably shouldn’t publish it.

Similarly, if you’re a teacher, consider how some of your colleagues would pass the breakfast test if they were to discover in the morning news some day that you’re being investigated for how you’ve been corresponding with your students on Facebook. If you think your colleagues might require the Heimlich maneuver upon hearing the news, then you might want to re-evaluate the importance of those Facebook interactions with your students.

Our humanistic legal system—usually—would say no, it’s not the same: You can’t convict somebody for murder if they kill a virtual person or video game character because they didn’t actually commit harm to anyone. Then again, Muhammad Ali’s daughter was once arrested for intent to shoplift, not actually shoplifting. She put that picture frame back, even.

But that was in Ohio, where you can be arrested for pretty much anything, contrary old ladies included.

For some, depending on which side of the moral fence they stand, Tuplin’s premise is ridiculous. It isn’t even credible to blame Grand Theft Auto for actual violence, much less apply any kind of moral judgment to vicarious unreal behavior—it’s just a game. Pretend kill and rob all you like, have fake sex with all the fake hookers you want.

None of it’s real so none of it matters. The other side says, often while sweeping their own naughtiness under the virtual rug, that of course it matters: The secret desires of the heart and mind pollute from the inside out.

But as Tuplin either expressly addresses or leads the reader to think about: Porn surfing and virtual sex aren’t technically cheating on a physical spouse—but it may feel the same to the spouse. Not good enough of an argument in favor of virtual morality? Other than actual child porn appearing on Second Life, why was there such an outcry about virtual adult avatars having virtual sexual experiences with virtual children (who were actually adults)? Why is virtual rape out of bounds?

None of it’s real so none of it matters right?

Well, obviously there is a line somewhere, and these types of virtual sex acts are pretty far across it. Even still, there were protests (by those participating, naturally) that LindenLabs had no business in their creepy pretend business.

Tuplin concludes, “Either we will be forced to concede that as long as no ‘other’ is being harmed, people are free to do absolutely anything (torture, rape, molest, murder, etc.), or we will conclude that morality does indeed have a place in virtual worlds.”

You could add to that: stalk, harass, insult, or generally be mean to, but I’m sitting this one out as far as actual conclusions. No doubt some of our readers haven’t. In real life, I try to be good, and most of my most closely-held morals I adhere to online as well. Virtually, I’m a reprehensible criminal: I’ve killed scores of pretend people, dealt virtual drugs, given assumed names to assumed strangers, participated (in the early days of the Net) in gang-flaming in chat rooms, wished for the untimely demise and/or misfortune of real people I’ve never met or seen and only imagine what they must look like and how they must act in my head (pasty and fat and bald and in-their-mom’s-basement loserish), assassinated fictional heads of state and mentally whacked real heads of state, silently cursed, quietly and distantly lusted, run over the heads of cartoon cats with a law mower and innovated sadistic ways to kill pretend mimes.

Does all that make me a bad person? I’m going with no, it makes me a human person. If pretend-child-molested was on that list, though, I would have had to have said so.   
 

The Marketing Management Survey, conducted annually in May, polled 252 chief marketing officers, VPs of marketing, marketing directors and managers about digital media and marketing ethics.

Mark Hass

Ten percent said they had an implicit/nonverbal agreement with a reporter or editor for favorable coverage of their company or product in return for buying advertising. One in 12 provided valuable gifts in exchange for coverage.

“Any kind of undisclosed paid placement spells trouble for consumers, the media and the marketing industry,” said Mark Hass, worldwide chief executive officer of MS&L.

During this advent of new media, marketers didn’t exhibit much faith in the system getting much better. The resulting ire directed at fake blogs and fictional authors, for example, haven’t changed much. The number of senior marketers admitting to pay-per-play schemes is actually up two percent from last year and over half (53%) this year don’t see ethical standards improving any time soon.

“The online world creates a whole new unsettling platform for marketers who are willing to engage unethically,” said Hass. 

Consumers in general (begrudgingly) tolerate product placement in entertainment content like movies or television shows with the understanding such arrangements help pay for otherwise cost-prohibitive productions. But most would draw the line when it comes to news coverage where they expect at least ethical disclosure, if not complete objectivity.

But more and more those ethical lines are becoming blurred. Not too long after the DVD release of The Onion Movie, where a traditional television news anchor has to cope with the new conglomerate owner’s battery powered bunny drumming across his news desk, life began imitating art. Local Fox News affiliates began placing McDonalds iced coffee drinks in front of them, recently, with ice that won’t melt under production lights.
 

UPDATE: It occurs to me later, upon further thinking, that Rachel Marsden, based on her history isn’t the most credible source in this case. First red flag that popped up that didn’t make into the original narrative: who saves tawdry IM conversations like that? First rule of wicked affairs: don’t record anything. So take Marsden’s "proof" with a grain of salt, she’s been called crazy more than once.

Wikipedia Logo
(Photo Credit: Wikipedia )

Because I’m sure he’s probably sorry for it, given that his hand is still pretty stuck in the cookie jar. I couldn’t know if he’s sorry for sure, just a hunch. The man himself hasn’t spoken to me directly since he got mad at me for saying Wikipedia didn’t like Sam Vaknin (which was said as a sarcastic jab at Vaknin in defense of Wikipedia). I tried to smooth it over, even apologized for being a poor communicator, and asked for clarification that never came (neither did any subsequent requested interviews).

Can’t blame him. There are better-looking TV pundits to talk to about it anyway. I’m used to being told no. Rachel Marsden, it would seem, is not used to such a thing.

Okay, enough melodramatic introduction; let’s get you caught up in case you’ve missed it. (Surprisingly, the US media hasn’t picked up on this much, not when compared to UK, Canadian, and Australian outlets—not that it should distract from Presidential primaries or Britney Spears coverage, either.)

James Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales, founder of Wikipedia, leader of a small, cultish band of editors as well as an entire open Internet movement, self-avowed "Objectivist to the core," and chafe in the craw of elitist academes everywhere, flat-out goofed. The kindest way to put it is that there was a series of unfortunate judgments, none of which was made in isolation from inside his cranium. That is to say, if it’s all true, Little Jimbo ran this fiasco right off the cliff.

And whose Gary-Busey-dark-side-lower-companion hasn’t done that at least once?

For Jimbo, that time is now, and unfortunately for him (justly or not) the fall from the cliff is a fall from grace, even if at least one blogger characterizes him as one who got lucky with a spaghetti-against-the-wall approach. (It’ll all blow over, of course, even if lots of people are having a good time right now dining on the entrails of a certain self-righteousness.)

Over the weekend, Wales posted an interesting response on Wikipedia, now moved to his blog, to rumors of an inappropriate relationship with former Fox News pundit by the name of Rachel Marsden, also known as "the Canadian Ann Coulter." If you haven’t heard of her (I hadn’t), her sketchy past is detailed on her Wikipedia page, which is a large part of this controversy. Dave Winer characterized it as trading edits for sex, but I’m not sure we can exactly, well, prove that.  

On Saturday, Wales wrote:

"Over the last few days, a few gossip websites have decided that my personal life is somehow of interest to people and, against my wishes, are publicizing details about a brief relationship I had with Rachel Marsden…. I considered myself single at the time of my one meeting with Rachel Marsden on February 9th, 2008. I am no longer involved with Rachel Marsden. Gossipy stories suggesting that I have been in a relationship with her ‘since last fall’ are completely false." 

By "gossip websites," he means Valleywag and Gawker. At least part of that statement was news to Marsden, too, who not only put "ex-boyfriend" Jimmy Wales’s shirts up for auction at eBay (current bid on one t-shirt currently over $12,000) while claiming he broke up with her "via an announcement on Wikipedia," but also released some lewd (and somewhat incriminating) instant message conversations to Valleywag, where all things sex and Silicon Valley live. Gawker says "one meeting" was more like seven meetings, and they weren’t really "meetings," either.

Your first objection, rightly, is wondering what Jimbo Wales’s sex life has to do with anything. Well, it doesn’t, especially, until it looks like, according to those salacious IM conversations, that Wales gave her a hand cleaning up her Wikipedia page. He even appears to acknowledge the huge conflict of interest there.

And there sure was a lot to clean up: No less than four other high-profile rabbit-boiling episodes, three of which involve harassment charges from old boyfriends*. The fourth, as far as the story from Fox goes, was that Marsden was fired for "erratic behavior."
 
If you ever saw the movie "Amazon Women on the Moon," there’s a classic sketch in it where Rosanna Arquette runs a dating background check on Steve Guttenburg to learn what kind of date he is. That would be a pretty convenient device to have in real life, and Wales sort of had one that warned: Marsden has a real history of sex scandals, despite whatever details she was disputing.

Did he not trust his own creation, or did Little Jimbo effectively slap on the blinders? Were the blinders that effective at blocking out the giant red flags? (Or Scarlet Letter, whichever you prefer.)

None of that matters, I guess, even if it gives some insight into the man’s judgment and weaknesses. We’re not supposed to hold those things against Bill Clinton, either, right? Sometimes otherwise brilliant men have questionable taste in exploits. Fine, we can deal with that, and any honest man would say that (as sexist a double standard as it is) that sometimes men do dumb things.

But here are the bigger matters: 1. Wales, who has been our champion of integrity when it comes to his community-edited online encyclopedia, lobbied his editors to clean up Marsden’s profile while having a steamy affair with Marsden, and seems to have lied about that relationship just before the proverbial caca hit the fan.

I thought there might be more "bigger matters," but that’s pretty much it. When you set yourself up on a pedestal, you have to be very careful of missteps at the edge of it. Wales built his community around trust and transparency. He may have to be transparent (and therefore vulnerable) to his community and trust that they’ll forgive him. I think they will, and in a few months or weeks or days will forget all about it. Until then, I imagine it’s pretty hot under Jimbo’s collar.

As of right now, Wales’s Wikipedia profile reads, "Wales had a brief relationship with Canadian journalist Rachel Marsden." It sources an article from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Perhaps that’s enough.

*The word "boyfriends" is used loosely here. One involved two-way sexual harassment charges and a college swimming coach; a second relationship earned her probation on criminal harassment charges; a third charge of harassment came from a Canadian policeman with whom she had a two-year affair.

Blogs became a problem quickly once the meme hit critical mass a few years ago. What used to be a novel event – an employee being fired for blogging – has become so standard that it is hardly newsworthy anymore.

While a blogging policy may work to an extent on a top-down basis, even if the company comes out occasionally looking like the bully, what do you do when an executive airs the company’s dirty laundry? Pack your desk, probably, as the company’s often sunk when that happens.

It used to be that the main risk you faced was an employee blabbing at a bar to a few indifferent earlobes, or worst case scenario, a disgruntled employee going to the press with a complaint, whether valid or not. But there was no guarantee the press would cover the incident.

And now it’s out there, just out there, on blogs, on social networking profiles, over instant messaging, via SMS, on YouTube, on Twitter. Everybody has their own personal broadcast network.

On a macro-level, that’s a good thing. It gives voices to the voiceless, puts pressure on the corrupt, robs the powerbrokers, spooks the machine. But idiots, too, can use it. And humans, who sometimes make mistakes.

Michael Krigsman at ZDNet, writing specifically about Twitter and the danger it poses as a many-to-many communication device, suggests companies have three options when dealing with a new platform that’s clearly not going away: ignore it; block and/or monitor; establish clear information-sharing guidelines. He recommends the last one, with strong enforcement.

But there’s something else that could evolve as well, something that will make the communication professionals job easier in the long run. It’s an optimistic model that will have to allow for the occasional negative exception.

When everyone’s a potential whistleblower, and the ears potentially listening to that whistle are ever expanding, we could see the rise of greater corporate consciousness toward ethical consistency, Google’s Don’t Be Evil philosophy expanded beyond Mountain View. This is a somewhat traditional moralistic view, an invisible eye that makes you behave.

I told you it was optimistic, as even Google has trouble with it. But the potential is there, a goal to strive toward, if a company is in this game for the long run. Transparency breeds trust (or distrust, if you don’t watch it), and when there’s trust and fulfillment of trust, controlling the message is easier as there is less to control.
 

Here’s Amy’s description of the panel and panelists.

My thoughts and notes …

Honesty and transparency – is it ever okay to mislead or deceive my omission? Compensation and influence – how does that affect what you say or don’t say….

Do people change the way they review, to continue to have access to junkets such as TV previews or book reviews ….

Bloggers do not necessarily get the respect that journalists get, but does this taint / color how they write to get that legitimacy? Small town newspapers, smaller media publications, also have the same problem, though. It’s a question of credibility – my credibility.

Astroturfing – it does happen on blogs and social media, but what can be done, and how do you expose it. Should it be exposed, and what is the responsibility of the blogger being spun or the corporation doing astroturf.

To acknowledge an error on the post is to be ethical. To just change the issue, you’re lacking transparency and not being smart about it.

::I called out the bullshit that there needs to be an organization, but that blogging wants to be both professional and still amateur – it wants its cake and to eat it too. There is Media Bloggers Association that is trying to get an insurance policy together, to protect bloggers::

Don’t be lazy – it’s a good aspect of ethics for life, no matter what you are doing.

Is anyone who they really say there are online, though. There are times that people have pseudonyms, but is that unethical? There’s a line that you have to protect yourself (career, etc) – but what is that line. Do you hide behind a pseudonym to be a prick and attack – then it’s not ethical. To protect and save yourself (job), then it appears fine.

Does character blogging fall into unethical? If it’s disclosed, does it violate the sense of ethics in blogging?

But, what is transparency and does there need to be a blogging code of ethics, a la Tim O’Reilly. Can you really set a standard and code for a bunch of divergent people, especially when the majority of bloggers are likely small bloggers and not into the whole scheme of things like a lot of the more seasoned or professional bloggers.

::For PR, this is an important issue – PR seems like it could and would violate the basic rules of ethics to get what is needed to be done for the clients (this is the PR people that are not involved in social media, nor understand it). It seems like the astroturf / fake blog would be the first thought in the brainstorm::

Payperpost (and in some ways, Federated Media) come up in a way that marketers are paying bloggers for chats and posts. If it’s not disclosed, is it unethical. There are all kinds of compensations that are meaningful, such as gifts, junkets. Is it relationship building, though? There are hospitality suites … and that’s part of it. Even link exchange, in a way, can be considered a way of bribery. Heck, we even got a wine offer for friendship from Christopher Calicott as an example of how it is just about relationships, but it can be misconstrued.

::Ethics is a tricky issue. At the U, it was always fun in the ethics classes because there really is no right answer. If you are a utilitarian, you do organ harvest from your own kid for the greatest good (if you’re saving the great minds of the world). But, that seems unethical. There are all these stories and issues::

Tris Hussey also wrote up the panel here. And, Amy Sample Ward is going to post also.

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This time, it’s an ethics debate about whether or not John Battelle’s arrangement, whereby bloggers in the FM network answered the question "When did you know your business was People Ready?" on their blogs and, in return, Microsoft placed cost-per-click ads on the network.

Valleywag called them out, specifically Michael Arrington, Om Malik, Paull Kedrosky, Matt Marshall and Fred Wilson (who was in the eye of the last blogstorm), calling them "spokesbloggers."

And then, the blogosphere went ape.

Om Malik was quick to respond, apologizing and calling for FM to pull the ads:

I have requested Federated Media, our sales partners, suspend the campaign on our network of sites, and they have. We are turning off any such campaigns that might be running on our network. Would I participate in a similar campaign again? Nothing is worth gambling the readers’ trust.

John Battelle agreed:

Well, we certainly stepped in it….Microsoft was attempting something new, certainly something entirely new for the company, in any case – it was inviting authors into the marketing conversation. We tried to do it in a way that was transparent, that had integrity, where no editorial space was purchased.

Michael Arrington, though, was a bit more defiant:

 So here’s my position on all of this: Go pound sand. People understand that if there’s text in an ad box, someone is paying for it to be there.

The main thing I’m pissed off about right now is that they pulled all the ads, which mean we’re taking a revenue hit. We’re running a business here, and have payroll to make. We run ads to make that payroll. Those ads have now been pulled.

For those of you that are too Midwest suburban, "pound sand" is explained at the Urban Dictionary, which won’t explain to Arrington’s employees why their paychecks bounced, or why it’s not really Valleywag’s fault.

Whichever side you take on the issue, Fake Steve Jobs opines about which side the bloggers took it (complete with illustrations):

He [Arrington] ends up sounding like a gal who’s trying to convince you that she’s not a "prostitute," she’s an "escort."

What makes this delicious is that these "spokesbloggers" are the same sanctimonious tw*ts who are constantly spouting bullsh*t about the glories of "citizen journalism" and patting themselves on the back and congratulating themselves for being so much more ethical and independent than the dreaded "Mainstream Media."

Ouch.

Battelle notes in his lengthy post at FM that he still thinks there is a future for conversational marketing, and some of the more objective (if there is such a thing) bloggers have noted that the whole scandal could have been avoided with full disclosure about the campaign.

There’s so much more to this story, but it’s Sunday evening and, well, it would take a huge post to summarize everything. I’ve not read every detail, but here’s what I’m thinking.

It should be obvious that a quote in an ad unit is a paid endorsement. It should be, but it isn’t always the case. There should be a hard line between editorial and advertising. There should be, but that’s not always the case. Perhaps you should make a disclosure statement, any time you sign a deal with an advertiser – regardless of whether the ad appears on your blog or some other site – although that’s not always practical. A general blog disclosure statement is a safety net for any blogger who accepts advertisers or paid endorsements. Having a disclosure statement tells your readers, “hey, listen I may actually have my unbiased blogger’s hat on right now, but you should know that I do, at some point, receive money from the company I’ve just discussed.”

If you’ve read the blogstorm, leave a comment and let me know where you stand in the debate. In the meantime, here’s our disclosure statement. We link to it whenever we mention an advertiser and it’s linked to from every blog page, in case we forget or you’re just curious.

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The thread is growing into a long one so if you want a brief summary you can look at Tamar’s posts

• Google Attacked Over Webmaster Relations
• Adam Lasnik of Google Responds to Webmasters Again

Michael Gray carried the conversation over to Threadwatch with How Would You Undo the Google FUD and Brainwashing.

I’d still urge you to read the original thread at WMW. It takes a lot of different turns away and back towards the original post, and many of the different ideas in the thread could carry their own blog post. I’ll only look at a few points from it here.

Why All The Focus On Google?

The reason why everyone is so focused on Google should be obvious. They had a 65.26% market share in March according to Hitwise, more than three times that of number two Yahoo’s 20.73%. If you could only rank a page for a phrase at one search engine, which are you likely to choose? Google can drive a lot of traffic to a site.

Having said that, Google traffic isn’t always best. While I haven’t been adding AdSense to posts for awhile, older posts here still have the ads. Google traffic results in the lowest CTR of any of the search engines for this site. A third of the traffic at three times the CTR ends up balancing out. Google users also tend to be more tech savvy than say AOL users, but perhaps your product isn’t high tech. Your potential customers may be using MSN or Yahoo and if they are that’s where you’d rather get search traffic.

And while Google sends the most people here month after month it doesn’t deliver me the most clients. Networking on and offline does that. Bottom line is Google can drive a lot of traffic, but it’s not the only source of traffic nor is it necessarily the best source of traffic for your site. Your best approach is to get traffic from a variety of sources so you’re not dependent on any of them.

Are Google’s Ethics Your Ethics?

I think the reason people associate Google’s guidelines with seo ethics comes from an older debate about black hat vs. white hat seo. SEO isn’t really black and white. There are many shades of gray in between and it can be hard to define sometimes what is and isn’t black hat seo. Often, though, it’s defined as something that goes against search engine guidelines. The reason being that if a search engine catches you doing something against their guidelines they may penalize your site.

Ethics is almost always attached to the white hat vs black hat debate and I think that’s where the guidelines as seo ethics comes from. The two should not be tied together. For one, there’s nothing unethical about being a black hat. It’s simply a different approach to search marketing and perhaps a different business model. Something works or it doesn’t Black hats take more risks to gain more reward over a shorter time frame. But that doesn’t make them unethical by default.

Google’s, or Yahoo’s, or MSN’s guidelines are not seo ethics. Do you buy links? Google would prefer you didn’t. Should you care what they think? That’s up to you. Do you profit from the links you buy? Does spending $20 on a link each month result in $200 in your bank account during that same month? Let your own ethics guide you in what’s right and wrong. Just know that if you go against a search engines guidelines and they catch you it might not bode well for your site.

You don’t have to do what Google wants you to do. That’s worth repeating. You don’t have to do what Google wants you to do. And they don’t have to do what you want them to do either. Neither of you owes anything to the other. It’s up to you how much or how little you want to follow their guidelines and it’s up to them how they want to deal with you based on that.

How Many Google Products Do You Use?

Google gives us all some pretty good free products. It’s tempting to use them all. I know I use a few, probably more than some and less than others. But make no mistake, Google’s generosity is based on a profit motive. Google is a business that makes money and answers to shareholders.

They give away a lot of products in part to collect data about you. Google wants to know what sites you visit and how well your ad converts. They want to know how long people spend on your site and what pages those people do and don’t like. Is giving all that information to Google good for you? Maybe, maybe not. They do offer some very useful products, but so do a lot of other companies. If Google knows a certain keyword you bid on drives traffic and sales might they then recommend that keyword to one of your competitors. Wouldn’t that have you both increasing your bids?

How many of their free products you use should depend on which you find useful and helpful. I have a gmail account, though it’s not tied to my business in any way. I have accounts with Analytics because they offer me better information than the other options I can currently afford. I like the direct information I get from Google’s Webmaster Tools. I use a few other Google products in either a professional or personal capacity. I’m not locked into any of them, but I find them helpful to my life and I appreciate them being there.

But I am aware that Google has it’s own motivation for giving them to me. I accept that motivation as part of my use of those tools. I’m sure some of the motivating factors are to increase Google’s profit margin. I also believe some of the motivation is satisfaction from releasing something that helps others. Google is a business, but they also have a culture that was founded on being a good citizen. Do all Google employees aspire to fo good? I have no idea, but I have a hunch many do.

And even when it comes to the profit motivation I don’t hold it against Google for trying to gain something in giving something away. Wouldn’t you do the same thing if positions were reversed? I would. I don’t really want any search engine to know every site I visit, but the marketer in me would really like to know what sites everyone else visits.

Do You Drink The Google Kool Aid?

In general I like Google. I wouldn’t say I’m drinking the punch, but I like them as a company. In comparison to Yahoo, MSN, and Ask, I think Google gets it right more often. That doesn’t make them perfect and that doesn’t mean I’m always going to do what they say. I don’t look to them for my moral compass and I don’t always believe everything a googler says.

I also like Google traffic. I could do a better job monetizing it and I’d like to get a larger share of that traffic. I’d also like to get more Yahoo, MSN, and Ask traffic. It doesn’t end there. I’d like more referral traffic and direct traffic and random drive by traffic. I’d like to have more people talking about me in forums and I’d like more people talking about me at barbecues.

Yes, Google traffic is good and as such it makes sense to play by their rules to a certain degree. But they are far from the only source of traffic and revenue you can get and your choices should be made based on your business and not the business of a search engine no matter how much traffic it can direct your way.

What do you think? Should we focus on Google to the exclusion of all others? Are they that important? Is Google still good or have they gone over to the dark side?

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Their expose of well known MarketWatch journalist, Bambi Francisco, reads as more of an attempt to undermine a rival publication, than a serious look at whether traditional journalists should avoid getting involved with companies they write about.

Here’s the summary CNET uses to describe their story…

What’s new:

MarketWatch reporter Bambi Francisco was allowed by her bosses to take a stake in a matchmaker for start-ups and venture capitalists, an industry she has covered for more than a decade.

Bottom line:

The arrangement is rare among journalists who usually follow strict rules to prevent even the perception of a conflict of interest.

If you read the story, I’d like to know if you think I’m completely imagining this or not.

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