The recent viral phenomenon for paid posts on blogs is just starting. In the middle of it all, ReviewMe and PayperPost, both of which presents a new revenue generating opportunity primarily focused on blogs. Let’s be honest, ReviewMe is just a re-hash of PayPerPost, only this time it followed the general sentiments of the A-Listers like TechCrunch which is to require bloggers to disclose.
IMO, if you’re a credible blogger, you don’t need to be required to disclose. You willingly disclose your interests esp. when it comes to advertisers. That bit of difference between policies of PayPerPost and ReviewMe does not make the latter any better, IMO. It’s still paid posting. Yes, you are free to speak your mind with ReviewMe and not with P3 so that makes ReviewMe on the good side.
Still, have we seen or read about some blogger trashing his sponsors or advertisers? All the time, you’d here them say click or visit our advertisers, aight? We haven’t — mainly because we want our advertisers to renew their ads next month. If a blogger trashes an advertiser in ReviewMe, I don’t think that advertiser will come back next month and pay them bloggers to trash them again. There’s still gonna be some conflicts of interest there.
Another perspective I just realized was that of journalists turned bloggers, like Max Limpag. He explained that in his recent post about Paying bloggers to write about products, services:
I’m uncomfortable with the idea. For me it is getting paid to influence your editorial judgment. Writing is an act of editorial judgment. The fact that you are reporting about something means you think the subject is worth writing about. I’m not saying that ReviewMe is bad. But it is bad for blogger-journalists because of the nature of their main job. It’s bad for bloggers who subject their site to journalistic standards.
His is on the perspective of a journalist. Of course, we all know they are on a different level altogether. Max hints about credibility so let us go further down the lane and see some similar examples in mainstream media.
- We’ve seen newscasters and public affairs program host on TV endorsing a product or promoting a service. They get paid millions of pesos just to smile and say that an product really works (e.g. Karen Davila’s face on a billboard in Guadalupe promoting some anti-aging medicine). Does that affect their credibility as news anchors?
- A journalists writes about a new service by a company who gave him a lifetime supply of products or a year’s service for free. The journalist never mentions he benefited from it in his article. How does that sound to people who knew about the arrangement?
- A food columnists reviewing only hotel restaurants and big fine dining places — did we ever heard or read about them giving negative reviews of these places?
- A magazine does a feature of a new product with glaring eye-candy and the readers aren’t even sure if those were reviews or advertorials.
These advertising practices are all over and have been around for decades in mainstream media. The good (and maybe bad, depending on where you stand) thing here is that the same ad model is also becoming popular in the blogosphere.
Still, I maintain that the virtue of blogging as a democratic exercise lies on the blogger himself. We don’t need advertising programs to tell us they require disclosure or not. The blogger will always have the final say. It’s up to the blogger if he’s willing to sell what little (if none at all) credibility we have.
This is one of the reason why I pay for all my food trips, because getting complimentary food or discounts for the resto that I feature can be considered as paid post.
Bloggers are more subjective and opinionated. This should not influenced or biased by money or other forms of preferential treatment.
Thanks Yuga for this post!
Abe,
You’re right. It’s up to bloggers what they make of their blogs and it’s perfectly fine and it’s what people love about the format. Blogging is first a personal medium.
But I feel it’s an altogether different thing for some sites, especially those that do reporting or opinion making and are seen as alternatives to “mainstream” media (and all its malaise).
And depending on where you stand, you can say a line had been crossed when you accepted payment from the subject of your article.
Ultimately it’s a personal thing. As a reader, would you trust a post paid for by the subject of the article? I won’t, precisely because of the reasons you enumerated. But depending on the poster, I might give him or her benefit of the doubt.
I enumerated those samples in MSM to make a point in an analogy. These journalists took an oath and yet they still went beyond the borders of what is appropriate in their line of practice.
In that connection, ReviewMe’s requirement for disclosure is just like that oath. The line can always be crossed. In the end, it’s not the profession (journalist or blogger) but the person himself who makes the final choice.
“Journalists should never become paid endorsers and just because prominent ones are doing this doesn’t make the practice right.”
I agree with Max. In fact, I will go one step further. Endorsements should not be allowed. A product has to stand on its own merits and companies capable and willing to pay celebrity endorsers should not be allowed to confuse the public by glossing over the inherent substance of the product vis a vis the eye-candy appeal of the celebrity endorser. UNLESS the endorser can PROVE that he actually uses the product on a REGULAR BASIS.
Really hard to be a blogger from being a journalists. The standards do not level down in terms of factual research and objectivity. Bloggers enjoy being biased and opinionated, and sometimes with self-interests like being paid to post reviews.
Abe,
All your mainstream media examples are bad. Journalists should never become paid endorsers and just because prominent ones are doing this doesn’t make the practice right. And just because less than scrupulous journalists are doing it doesn’t make it right for bloggers either.
To answer your question whether paid endorsements affect the credibility of journalists: for me, yes — a lot. I don’t trust them. Do you? If they accept payments to endorse products, what guarantees do we have that they do not accept favors to affect the slant of their news stories?
You rarely read food reviews that are negative, for example, because most often critics are served free. They’re sent on a junket that’s paid for by a hotel or a restaurant that wants to promote its services. When you’re not paying for something, your valuation is skewed. You want to read a review that isn’t part of a junket? Here’s one. :-)
But as I said in my post, the service might work for some blogs. You can look at it as being paid to join a software or service evaluation and then getting paid for your comments on the product, only that you’re sharing the experience with your readers.
Still, I cannot see how you can compartmentalize it. How you accept money to write about something for some posts and not for others.