With regular work at financial publications becoming harder and harder to come by, many freelance journalists are turning to corporate copywriting work to pay the bills. This can cause issues with bias sneaking into their journalistic work.
In recent years we have seen an increase in financial, especially investment and pensions, journalists turning to corporate copywriting or even PR work as their main source of income.
As a copywriting and PR professional who also does some freelance journalism from time to time, avoiding bias is something I always must stay aware of.
So how do I get around this problem?
I don’t write for publications that regularly cover the markets my client base have as their main focus.
I have made sure that I have several strings to my market expertise so that I can put up a glass wall between the different markets I cover. If I am writing about markets my clients don’t operate in, then my journalistic clients know that they don’t have anything to worry about and visa-versa.
I highlight any potential conflicts of interest well ahead of time.
Should one of my PR/corporate copywriting clients be making a sidestep into an area that I write about for a journalistic client, I make sure to make both aware of the potential clash ahead of time. This enables all parties to make sensible decisions about the best way forwards.
Should there be a conflict of interest that is not just a one off, and both clients want to keep me then I make tough decisions.
Too many agencies have their books full of competitors with consultants facing multiple conflicts of interest. I have been there before and in my experience it is just not worth the stress.
Brandon Consulting Services Ltd 