Just one more thought on the last round of comments. Regarding journalists, they’re getting paid by publishers, not vendors. That’s their job – they get paid to write about the news. Blogging isn’t a job, and in most cases where money is involved, it’s for a specific post. That’s a completely different situation and because it’s so unusual, that’s why disclosure is needed. Unfortunately, bloggers don’t generally have a moral obligation to their readers, especially since readers aren’t paying to get the content.

Blogging networks are different species altogether – understood. It’s the new journalism, and if it’s done right – including proper disclosure – then it’s every bit as credible as traditional journalism.

Time to stop and move on. This debate is healthy – and needed – because we’re all struggling with basic issues like trust, integrity, objectivity, accuracy, fairness, etc. – in a medium – the Net – which is far too open for abuses around freedom of speech that traditional media has worked so hard to nurture, respect and protect.

Some bloggers, particularly those who work for a blogging network like Creative Weblogging, get paid to produce content. Other than the sponsored posts thing I mentioned before, there is little to no editorial control. They are mostly concerned with the generation of content about a specific topic, but there are standards.

Reporters likewise get paid to write stories for whatever news organization they work for. The fact that reporters get held to higher standards is not really relevant to my point. The fact is, they are getting paid to produce content by a third party unrelated to what the content is about. And if that’s the case, what benefit is there in disclosing?

Now if the content is related to the party paying somehow (e.g. the party in question or a competitor), then disclosure is absolutely required.

Sarah Austin no doubt should have recused herself in this particular endeavor with TechCrunch. I certainly would have under similar circumstances. However, as I understand it, she did not write the piece in question or the conclusions. Flixwagon was the worst of the bunch. If her “bias” entered into it, wouldn’t the results have been different?

The other important point to make: just because someone’s payng you doesn’t mean you’re necessarily biased towards them. It is possible to be objective despite these relationships.

Sorry, but journalism does NOT equal blogging. This is bad logic and I’ve been railing on about this for ages. Journalism is a profession – they’re trained and are held up to editorial scrutiny. Blogging is NOT is this category – regardless as to whether the bloggers have the best content – which often IS the case.

However, bloggers are not paid to blog and they’re not accountable to anyone, and it’s just fallacious to say there’s not much difference. Bloggers may get paid to write a particular post about something, but they’re not generally paid to blog. They make their living doing other things, and paid blogging is found money.

That’s very different from journalists – they’re not paid by a specific vendor to write about them – that’s an advertorial – or it’s just payola – unless they’re upfront about it. And that’s the issue Pat is raising in his post with Flixwagon. Sorry, but that’s a very different kettle of fish, and if bloggers want to be taken seriously outside their immediate circle of readers, they need to play by the same rules as journalists. Pay to play is not the same as journalism, plain and simple.