Watch Mitch’s space
Mitch Ratcliffe has an intersting story - which is only gonna get more interesting. It involves the ‘Pay Bloggers to Blog’ program from Marqui.
November 24, 2004
Watch this space
So, I got a call from a reporter at the Globe and Mail today. He was calling about the fact I’ve agreed to a sponsorship deal with Marqui, the project Marc Canter has been working on.
I smelled a bit of hellfire. He had not looked at my blog, didn’t know anything about me, and barely asked. He got right to the question of whether I was “tainting the blogosphere.” I responded that there was plenty of taint on the blogosphere already with people grinding their political and personal axes. All I am doing is taking $800 a month to thank a company for supporting my site; I can say anything I want about their product and don’t have to say anything except “thanks” (really, Marqui, thanks for the sponsorship) once a week.
I happen to know. I wrote the contract for Marc that Marqui is using. I didn’t put the verbiage about obscenity in there, which I think is a mistake, because no one agrees what is obscene so it’s the kind of thing people who want to argue will pick at.
But, otherwise, I’m comfortable after a career as an editor and publisher that all I have done is sign an agreement that is similar to the one a newspaper signs with an advertiser. [But, I didn’t say any of this to the reporter. I didn’t get a chance.] He sounded surprised, though, when I said I write for a living, but we didn’t get into any depth on that background information. Maybe if I’d got a chance to mention I write a blog, for pay, scant though it may be, at Red Herring.
The reporter asked if it wasn’t a form of sponsorship or endorsement.
By me or Marqui, I asked?
Yes.
Well, I don’t want to be associated with crappy products and I used the Marqui system, which is a Web based system for creating and managing communications with the marketplace, found it interesting, too. So, yes, I said, it is a “tacit endorsement.”
Here’s where I smelt the hellfire.
“Thanks,” the reporter said. “That’s all.”
That’s all? Really? I laughed, because I’ve interviewed thousands of people and this was an abrupt end to a very brief interview. I offered to take any follow up calls with more questions.
So, here’s what I predict we’ll be seeing: Naive bloggers are trampling on the ethical lines journalists know and respect.
Here’s the thing. I’ll bet the Globe and Mail refuses advertising from some organizations. Do they take ads from neo-Nazi organizations or NAMBLA? Do they take ads featuring nude models in explicitly sexual situations? The newspaper associates itself with community values, which have explicitly economic consequences.
So, as a publisher, the Globe and Mail makes decisions about what kinds of ideas and products it allows on its pages. Bloggers, because they don’t have a publisher, have to make the same decisions for themselves.
Now, that would have been an interesting discussion to have, but it seems like the guy was looking for a hook on which to hang a particular story line. Which is why we need some bloggers interjecting with their own views.
[RatcliffeBlog]
DISCLAIMER: Mitch is not only a paid blogger for Marqui and the guy who’s helping me get the written materials and screen-copy together, but also a good friend and he wrote one of the versions of my company’s business plan - so you could say that this is as incestuous as it gets.
God Bless Mitch, God Bless Marqui and a Happy day after Turkey day to you all.