The disclosure disconnect: ideals of transparency and editorial reality

Disclosure of a journalist’s interests is one of a range of transparency measures being advocated to help lift levels of accountability and public trust in journalism. However, there is a lack of consensus about the efficacy of this type of personal disclosure and how it should be performed. This paper reports on inductive analysis of semi-structured interviews with 10 Australian news editors about managing the transition of former reporters from press secretary to political journalist. The data revealed disagreement about the need for former political staffers to declare their previous employment to the audience once they became political news reporters. However, all argued reporters should be judged on their journalism practice and not on their CV. This paper highlights the tension between the ideal of transparency and the ongo-ing reliance on the norm of objectivity in conceptions of journalistic professionalism.