A minor kerfuffle seems to be brewing about disclosure (which is, to us securities
lawyers, God) by online citizen journalists about products/services they endorse. When
the topic hits The
New York Times you know it’s official, and the
FTC has also posted regs
for public comment governing this “Wild West.” Here’s how Ford Motor’s “global manager of digital and multimedia communications,” Scott Monty, put
it:
[Monty:] “Since blogging is relatively new and because there’s
no editorial oversight, it can seem like the Wild West, absent any guiding
principles.” …The lack of regulation has allowed companies to pay or otherwise compensate
bloggers for promotional content, which bloggers have been free to pass off
as personal opinion. Neither company nor blogger was held responsible for outlandish
and unverifiable claims.But the “Wild West” days may soon be over.
This will be really quick, folks, but for the record here’s the “Adam Smith,
Esq.” policy:
- Nobody can buy one word of coverage on this site for any price: Not
for love and not for money. Hasn’t ever happened; never will. Full
stop. - If a sponsor purchases an advertisement on the site, they go into the equivalent
of the editorially quarantined deep-freeze for the duration of the campaign,
plus some suitable “cooling off period” afterwards. - Between this site and my management consulting business there is an unyielding
and impregnable Chinese Wall. Firms I might be working
with get the same treatment as advertisers: They go into editorial
purgatory for the duration, and then some. - I always and everywhere try to disclose relationships
and friendships and if you ever wonder about something, ask me point blank - The only things of value I’ve ever received have been the occasional reviewers’
copies of newly published books–90%
of them unbidden. After I’ve read them, if I read them, I donate them
to the library.
Told you it would be short.
