One of the most worrisome developments in the media landscape over the last two decades has been conglomeration—which coincides quite naturally with additional concerns about profit-driven bias in publishing, both online and off. At the heart of these concerns sits a simple concept: conflict of interest. When a writer, editor, publisher, or C-level executive moves to protect one "interest" to the detriment of another, you have a conflict. The classical example is the hypothetical reporter covering Acme Inc. while also holding stock in Acme Inc. Can that reporter be trusted to not let her financial interest in the company affect her reporting?

The concern permeates every publishing entity, and last week CBS/CNET provided a textbook example of such a conflict. CNET's parent company CBS told CNET not to hand a "best of CES" award to DISH's new Hopper product because DISH and CBS are currently locked in litigation. (Rather than rehash the imbroglio, I'll point you to our earlier coverage and provide a screengrab below. CNET has now issued its own statement about what happened, and one of its reporters has already resigned over the company's handling of the matter.) The story quickly showed exactly why such conflicts can be so damaging—they generate considerable distrust.

The notice at the bottom of CNET's Hopper review states the product "was removed from consideration for the Best of CES 2013 awards due to active litigation involving our parent company CBS Corp. We will no longer be reviewing products manufactured by companies with which we are in litigation with respect to such product." This disclosure, just like a disclosure from a reporter who owns stock in a company that he covers, gives the appearance of being forthright. It seems to explain an editorial stance or possibly a bias to the reader. But what it does not do is actually remove the conflict of interest.

Conflicts of interest are persistent, and they do not only appear when journalists write about a particular company with which they might have a conflict. No, a real conflict of interest will affect story selection, reviews of other products, or the ratings of other products vis-à-vis one another, among other things. In publishing, what you do not do is just as critical as what you do. What stories you pass over, which paragraph you edit out, which events you cover, and which you skip can all be affected by a conflict of interest, and these things don’t come with an opportunity for disclosure. In the case of CNET, the implication of this disclosure is that not only will the site not look at DISH products, but it also will not take those products into consideration when reviewing other DVRs. It effectively colors all DVR coverage at CNET.

These kinds of effects are the main reason I don't believe disclosures do much to resolve conflicts of interest. One might feel that saying, "I'm an investor in Acme Inc." or “I’m in a skirmish with Acme Legal” erases a conflict of interest by bringing light to the issue. Or perhaps one thinks that it’s merely a fair heads-up of potential bias in a kind of “take it or leave it” way. But in reality, these disclosures only help raise awareness of a conflict part of the time.

At Ars Technica, we are fortunate to have a parent company (Conde Nast) that exercises zero influence over our editorial decisions. We have a strong separation between Church and State (Sales and Editorial), and we are also fortunate to have a team that is willing to forgo investing directly in the tech stocks and startup companies they cover. I believe this is the way we can best serve our own readership, but I won’t say it’s the only way to serve a readership. I understand and respect that there are other models emerging, and none of them are sinister. Still, "disclosure" remains overrated as remedy for these complex ills.

None of this is to say disclosure is a bad thing; I simply don't see it as a panacea. Disclosing conflicts is like pointing to the tip of an iceberg. You at least know the iceberg is there, but you have no idea how far and wide and deep it extends beyond what you can see. And unlike raw bias, which tends to be ideological, conflicts of interest are more worrisome because they can lead to real impropriety. This CBS/CNET situation is a perfect example of terrible, unrepentant disservice to a publication's readership.