When is disclosure of potential or real conflicts of interest sufficient? Or, put another way, when is the absence of disclosure an ethical issue for journalists? This question of transparency provoked an attack on the World Health Organization's recommendations regarding H1N1, and locally it's an issue surrounding Enquirer Publisher Margaret Buchanan's role on the 3CDC board.  

When Elena Kagan was nominated for the Supreme Court, an immediate story was that her confirmation would mean "three Jews, six Roman Catholics and no Protestants." The media still have a lingering fixation on Jews. Not Judaism, Jews. Somehow it often seems necessary to identify people by their religion when they're Jews.  

In the Good Old Days, journalists generally held a story if authorities said it could compromise the stakeout, chase or anticipated capture of a suspect. Even if we knew where agents were headed or or stood with them outside a motel where a kidnapper and victim were hidden, we responded with silence. These issues arose again when the 24/7-obsessed news media unthinkingly helped the Times Square bombing suspect almost escape.   

Reporting creates personal reservoirs of trivia. My treasury includes South African troopers in vehicles designed to defeat land mines laid by ANC's military wing during the apartheid era. So I wonder why American reporters in Washington, Iraq and Afghanistan haven't written about the Pentagon decision to go to war without South African vehicles that could have reduced now-common traumatic brain injury and loss of limbs from roadside mines and IEDs.  

Gannett's Indianapolis Star has a real mess on its hands involving a breach of ethics and the readers' trust, started when the paper "repurposed" a three-year-old feature story and photo spread on summer camps in a new camp guide advertising section without the reporter's or photographer's knowledge. The old story was labeled "special advertising feature" and presented as if it contained up-to-date information. I asked Enquirer Editor Tom Callinan about his policy on the separation of news- and advertising-oriented content.  

We're watching the meltdown of another story that was too good to be true, too vivid and contemporary to challenge: the runaway California Prius. It didn't take long before the California driver's claims were restated as facts: uncontrolled speed, inability to slow or stop and heroic cop who played a role in averting disaster. It made sense if you believed the hype about Toyota problems. It was too good a story.   

In today's cultural, intellectual and financial world, I can't imagine a media job with less potential than science reporter. When your sources become objects of public scorn and ridicule, what's to write? In a nation accustomed to seeking simple answers to complex questions and a culture increasingly driven by belief rather than evidence, scientists today often are trying to communicate with the willfully deaf.  

General Electric boss Jeffrey Immelt wants major businesses to create a regional cooperative to deal with major shortcomings (limited access, rising costs) of our health system. Something similar was tried in 1992, when the big four employers (P&G, Kroger, GE Aviation and Cincinnati Bell) basically sought to control costs by demanding that hospitals demonstrate cost effectiveness. Facing threats to their fees, unhappy physicians used scare tactics to predict a health care crisis as specialists left for more lucrative cities.  

True to their tribe, local TV forecasters created as much anxiety as possible recently about a storm moving into our region. Day after day, we learned nothing new from redundant presentations and banter with anchors. It was like a sermon: The more fearful their ceaseless drumming makes us, the likelier we are to stay tuned for redemption.   

It didn't take long before I realized the true horror of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision freeing corporations to spend freely to support political campaigns. It wasn't the new potential for corruption or wealth drowning out other voices. It's the promise of more campaign ads on local TV.  

Believe what you want, there is a difference between news and advocacy. Forget that and it's editorializing, a corrosive mixture of news and opinion in the guise of news. Exhibit A: the recent Enquirer story reporting as fact a local woman's ability to foretell the future. If that weren't enough, the paper provided contact information for anyone wanting a private "reading."  

Local journalists aren't exempt from the love/hate generated by the command to compile lists of top stories at the end of each year or decade. More than anything, it's a chance to remind everyone how smart they were when they wrote the first draft of what's become history. But rather than remind you of my failings in the past year or decade, let me suggest what 2010 might hold for the news media.  

Life can be tough at the top of the Enquirer food chain. Circulation (printed papers sold) continues to decline. The paper has retired, bought out and fired just about everyone it can to cut costs. More unpaid furloughs are likely. I have no idea how profitable The Enquirer remains. The paper doesn't say. It never does, at least publicly. Yet its slumping core paid circulation doesn't encourage optimism.  

A recent banner story on page 1 of The Enquirer's Local Life reported that Cincinnati Country Day was the second best high school in Ohio, based on passing percentage on state graduation tests and some yet-to-be revealed formula. The real story, if there was one, came later when it was mentioned that five Cincinnati area schools were in the top 10, including a public high school, Walnut Hills. I'm surprised the "study" dreamed up by a Columbus man in his basement survived The Enquirer's crap detector.  

NKU's student paper was wrong to cancel ads for Resistance Records because the advertiser's racism offends the editor. And Editor Tim Owens was wrong to publish an apology for carrying the ads. If he were going to apologize, it should have been for invoking his beliefs to justify silencing an advertiser.