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This is why the business side and news side of (quality) news papers have been historically kept separate. It also leads to perceived "weirdness" to readers when they see a paper taking money from a corporation to run an advertisement alongside an article critical of said corporation.

This isn't to invalidate your point completely, but to give some insight to those who are not aware of how this conflict of interest has been generally handled.

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Yes, of course, I agree. And it doesn't invalidate my point at all. I would say that you're pointing out the problem that people don't understand how important it is to avoid conflicts of interest, and that we need systems in place to minimize it.

The case of Donald Trump is a perfect example. He had conflicts of interest galore, didn't even deny them, in fact he flouted them, and many people seemed to think everything was fine.

We need to be aware not only of the existence of conflicts of interest, but also of (1) how corrosive these conflicts are, and (2) the crucial importance of designing systems to minimize the bad incentives and effects that arise from conflicts of interest. Systems, in other words, that minimize the harm that -- because of human nature -- inevitably flows even from well-intentioned people when conflicts of interest are tolerated.

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