Here’s Jon Lebkowsky…..

Should bloggers take money for writing about sponsored products? JD Lasica explores the question in a very good article for the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review. Lasica focuses on the controversial Marqui Payblogger program that’s been sponsoring Weblogsky since December. Every week, I post something about Marqui, often based on content that Marqui provides. The twenty Marqui bloggers take diverse approaches to the agreement to post weekly, but we all disclose our relationship with Marqui. Journalists wouldn’t do this because it might create the appearance, accurate or not, that there’s a conflict of interest. So when bloggers do something like this, it’s more fuel for the discussion of blogging vs journalism. Jay Rosen says that debate is over, but, well, it ain’t over ’til it’s over. However I don’t think it’s a debate of journalists vs. bloggers, it’s a debate of bloggers who want to be thought of as journalists (and paid accordingly) vs. bloggers who the
freedom to wear any or many hats.

JD summarizes the Society of Professional Journalists’ Ethics Code, “which instructs journalists to:

• Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
  


• Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.


• Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.


• Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.
  


• Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money…”

However, he says, “Bloggers sometimes act as journalists, but they uniformly say they hew to different standards than professional journalists.” He summarizes those standards:

• “Disclose, disclose, disclose. Transparency – of actions, motives and financial considerations – is the golden rule of the blogosphere.
  


• Follow your passions. Blog about topics you care deeply about.
  


• Be honest. Write what you believe.
  


• Trust your readers to form their own judgments and conclusions.
  


• Reputation is the principal currency of cyberspace. Maintain your independence and integrity – lost trust is difficult to regain.”

The Marqui experiment has been very open on their end; they haven’t told us what to do, which makes sense, given the lack of precedence or standards for this sort of thing. I figured I was like a smalltown newspaper editor who also has to be a reporter and write all the ad copy, because there’s only one of me, some days even less. Others had different approaches, like Mitch, who simply thanked Marqui each week for its sponsorship.

It wasn’t an ethical dilemma for me, at least at first. I do have a bit of an issue now, though. Though skeptical at first, I began to see over time that Marqui has a good system. Then Lucy Tanner of Marqui called and asked if my company, Polycot, was interested in partnering with Marqui. Polycot has its own CMS, but we use other products, too, depending on the project. We may very well go for it, which is less of a quandary since my contract as a Marqui blogger is
near its end. I can simply choose not to renew.

As a journalist, would I work for a company that sponsored my blog - that I was paid to write about? Probably not. As a blogger, though, I’m less conflicted. My life as a businessman and my life as a blogger are mashed up, and the rest of my life is in there, too, and it’s all a continuum for me. I’m pretty honest, and hopefully credible, and I can’t really see any reason not to work with Marqui if it makes business sense.

I have written as a journalist before, I understand how it works. That wasn’t exactly the kind of writing I wanted to do – a lot of the stuff I’ve written has been gonzo, not objective. I didn’t follow the formula, but writed what I wanted to write.

Lasica speaks for me when he says:

If bloggers are paid by a corporation to write about the company, they’re no longer acting as amateur journalists. Journalists cannot and do not accept payments from sources.

Bloggers, on the other hand, are free to do so, and it’s up to each reader to decide how to judge that. “If you’re a blogger or writer, OK, take the money,” Rubel said. “But understand that you’ve crossed a line with some readers.”

Just don’t call yourself a journalist when you’re cashing that check.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 20th, 2005 at 9:57 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.