But it's silly to maintain that this isn't a complex situation with no gray areas. In Nolan's case, the gray areas include the reporter's notification of her editors about her stock trade and her assignment to write a freelance article about it for Fortune magazine. These issues don't make what Nolan did right, but they ought to give anyone pause before passing a definitive judgment on these events. The journalists are understandably eager to bolster their profession's reputation. But in their zeal, they are reacting to Nolan's lapse with an almost comical self-righteousness.
Conflicts of interest are most dangerous when they're least obvious.
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