I have been writing for years on the perils for consumers of media and investment conferences sponsored by financial sales firms and their representatives. While the costs were writ clear in the 2008 financial collapse, the lack of will to separate financial sales from advising, or prosecute large institutions for ongoing fraud and reckless activities since, have enabled an intensification of dangers. CBC Go Public investigated one such example recently in ‘Fake’ experts on radio shows conned listeners out of millions, experts say:
The case highlights the increasingly blurred line between programs that sound like news but are actually paid advertising, and how disclaimers often do little to inform audiences of the difference, says media ethicist Stephen Ward.
“The whole area of paid content is an ethical quagmire … Cases where it’s blurred cause false stories,” he said.
In this case, ‘foreign exchange experts’ were regularly featured on at least five local radio stations — owned by Corus Entertainment and Bell Media — that ran in southern Ontario between 2016 and part of 2017. These actors were allegedly outright fraudsters paying to appear as expert guests and then stealing customer deposits for their own use.
That said, financial sales representatives buying spots that are then delivered to the public as valuable insight goes far beyond this case. Bloomberg, CNBC and BNN are all based on this heavily-conflicted model. And, as I wrote in 2011, the CBC and other long-standing news outlets have also succumbed to some of these revenue-focused tactics over the last 15 years, see CBC television degrades itself, as well as O’Leary not admirable or worthy of leadership.
The bottom line is that media and media personalities tend to have a larger-than-life influence on viewers and listeners, buyers need to be very wary.
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