Bloggers for Hire

by Barbara Eastom Bates | More from this Blogger

12 Feb 2007 08:04 PM

Bloggers are changing the world.

Once upon a time the big media outlets - television and newspapers - were the ones who owned all the information.

Noam Chomsky, U.S. media and foreign policy critic, remarked, "the media serve the interests of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established privilege and limited debate and discussion accordingly."

It is this interlinking relationship between traditional media and the powers-that-be that brings questions of murky motivations behind your "fair and balanced" TV news.

Blogging has leveled the playing field. Anyone with a computer and internet connection can blog, report news as it happens, share perspective, and engage in discussion - sometimes before traditional media outlets ever get a hold of the details.

Political blogger, Matt Drudge, scooped significant aspects of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal on his popular alternative news blog, The Drudge Report, after Newsweek had refused to publish it.

But as blogging and grass roots journalism grows, new issues have surfaced.

In the past presidential election, several prominent bloggers were paid by candidates and political groups they regularly wrote about on their personal blogs, without ever disclosing details of the arrangement.

But it isn't just those high on the blogging ecosystem that are making a buck off writing secret paid advertisements. Websites such as Pay Per Post offer money to any blogger that is willing to write about various products or ideas as requested by their paid advertisers. Although Pay Per Post encourages bloggers to disclose their relationship with the company, it isn't required and bloggers may choose to do otherwise.

Advertising, for better or worse, is a part of the net that's here to stay. And while nothing is wrong with bloggers being paid for what they write, choosing not to disclose such an arrangement is questionable ethics. Whether I'm shopping for new tech toys or the next leader of the free world, I want to know what I'm getting when I read a glowing review.

What do you think?

Learn more about Barbara Eastom Bates

Barbara Eastom Bates is a freelance writer and self-professed computer geek living in southern California.

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