Yeah, I was killing time before leaving work and amping up the bad media / freedom of speech thing to give you an argument - take with salt :)
But still... I don't buy the regulation here. Maybe my experience of bloggers is different from most, but I certainly don't trust them more or less than journalists. And what you talk about, Steve, with the inbuilt suspicion of journalists reducing the capacity to mislead, is equally true of bloggers, if not more. I don't detect a great surge of trust and love among other people I know for bloggers I look at probably 1000 new sites a week for my work, and most of the blogs I come across are spammy adsense-driven nonsense, running on freebies and linkbait. Needless to say, I pay them no attention. As for fams and freebies - they are the lifeblood of the PR industry - which acts as intermediary between manufacturer/advertiser and press. And they provide an astonishing amount of content for the press. An intelligent PR company understands that by demanding a tone from the journalist, you are undermining the piece that results. We're all smart enough to know the difference between a proper review and something that's either advertiser-driven or filler content. You don't need regulation for that. As for travel - Rox mentioned one blogger who didn't declare her Fam trip to Hawaii - media Fams are still going as strong as ever in the travel industry & press. But there's an understanding between PRs and journalists in most of these cases - the PR needs the journalist to trust them to build a relationship, the journalist or especially the columnist needs their readers to trust them. Same is true for travel agents who get fam trips - see this: http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/blogs/2009/08/on-fam-trips-and-honesty.html If you trust bloggers and print writers, it's because you develop a relationship with them. If they gush about something and don't declare an interest, someone in the comments will call them on it. Their livelihood is harmed by having their reputation questioned - so they tend to pre-empt that, by declaring interests. If one of them abused trust by doing any of the things that Roxanne listed from the FTC site, they'd be risking more than just contravention of regulations. And anyway, in any of those examples - short of a blogger recommending that someone else do something that harmed them, on the basis of a paid post - I don't see how someone could be realistically prosecuted. And surely unenforcable law is bad law - apart from the fact that it creates a false sense of security. If you think people need to be protected from being stupid and believing everything they read, I'm not sure regulating blog content is the way to change that. In the end, you trust bloggers who are honest about the bad aspects of the free stuff they're sent, or free trips they get. I know plenty of bloggers who get sent oodles of gadgets for free - just like tech journalists for print publications. The proof of their worth is in their balanced reviews. Again, regulation isn't going to change that. Surely all this kind of regulation would do is make money for lawyers and lawmakers? I don't know - I guess I'm missing what's getting you all so excited about this. Rupert http://twittervlog.tv On 6-Oct-09, at 5:56 PM, elbowsofdeath wrote: > From what I have read of the FTCs guidelines and stance so far, it > mostly boils down to whether people are being mislead, and the > regard that consumers have for different messengers is taken into > account . eg if people dont trust journalists very much in the first > place, or expect them to be distorting things for commercial > reasons, then this is taken into account when considering how likely > people are to be mislead, ie the capacity to mislead is reduced if > the messenger is not trusted in the first place. > > When individuals blog on the net, there are not likely to be so many > preconceived ideas, people may be more inclined to take them at face > value, hence the need to disclosure of commercial relationships and > suchlike. > > "permit to speak' is rhetoric that just makes me laugh, thats not > what this is about at all. Nobody has to get a license to speak, its > just that they dont have freedom to say whatever they like without > potential consequences, which is fine by me. We are never free from > the consequences of words, whether its me being unpopular for things > I say, or someone risking a fine for trying to promote things in > ways that are potentially misleading. > > Cheers > > Steve Elbows > > --- In [email protected], Rupert Howe <rup...@...> wrote: > > > > Ethical standards is funny in relation to newspaper journalism. I > > don't know many newspapers in the UK that have much in the way of > real > > ethics, certainly not much in the way of morals. > > > > Sure, they have some house standards, and they are self-regulating > in > > cases of extreme breach. > > > > But mostly it's just muckraking, partisan politics and > sensationalism > > in the name of trying to stay afloat and not lose advertisers. > > > > Look through your newspapers today and tell me that they're being > > transparent about their advertising. > > > > A journalist in this group told me only last month about how his > > editor killed a story he was writing about a huge corporate crime > > solely because the criminals were big advertisers. > > > > I think maybe the US has a stronger myth of the noble journalist and > > truth seeking press. However true that is, I don't know - > certainly I > > don't see much in the way of truth seeking editors and proprietors. > > > > So I don't see why people writing or publishing online have to be > > regulated at all, beyond existing laws. There will always be conmen > > and suckers, politicians and voters, papers and readers. Regulations > > like this don't change any of that, they're just something for > > politicians and civil servants to do. And how will this be enforced > > - whose permits would be monitored and taken away, and how? Surely > > it's a joke - but a lucrative joke, if your Permit To Speak costs > you > > money to buy. > > > > And, in the end, Permits to Speak will be abused by people who don't > > agree with what you say. > > > > > > On 6-Oct-09, at 4:48 PM, Tom Gosse wrote: > > > > > On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 11:03 AM, Adrian Miles <adrian.mi...@... > > > >wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I don't think bloggers, on the one hand, can > > > > call for the same rights and privileges as the press, but then > not > > > > want to actually be held to reasonable ethical standards. > > > > > > > > > > Well said! > > > > > > -- > > > Tom Gosse (Irish Hermit) > > > bigdogvi...@... > > > www.irishhermit.com > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
