Sheila says
I am typing in the newsroom of a mainstream major metro daily where no payola is allowed. None. I sometimes leave at night with giant bouquets sent to the society writer or the restaurant reviewer, reporters who are not allowed to keep them under our stringent rules.Reviewers may keep the books, cds and software they review. They may not sell the overflow; these are offered in monthly "book grabs" open to the entire building. We are monkish about preserving not only our objectivity but avoiding the appearance of impropriety. It's why you can't get rich in journalism.
When I wrote a column about gadgets for a paper, co's like IBM used to send me pretty valuable items - without even an initial call from a PR person. Just flood the mail with stuff. The system seems to presume that bribery works.I believe heartily that bribery works, and in my line of work I see constant examples of human frailty and corruptibility. These do not surprise me. (And I take Sheila’s allusion to reportorial “monkish” behavior in the very best sense.)
But there’s a significant difference between expecting paid reporters to decline gifts that would engender a confllict of interests, and expecting unpaid bloggers to decline gifts that actually cohere with their interests. (The Happy Tutor asked, the other day, if this isn’t what Gonzo Marketing is about?)
“Was it a millionaire who said ‘Imagine no possessions’?” I doubt that I’m writing to any millionaires—certainly not the reporters among us—but the Tutor’s relentless flogging of every pretension to purity and high-mindedness ought not anesthetize us to the truth behind the rod: that we’re scrambling around, trying to make ends meet, doing what we can with limited resources. If when I preached, I recommended Windows XP because Microsoft was sponsoring the sermon, I’d have a conflict of interests and would be justly reviled. If I blog favorably about Communications Inc. because they gave me a squeeze ball, a pen, and a can of mints, there’s no conflict of interests, only cheap commercialization of what readers will have thought a disinterested voice at the coffee table. That’s disappointing, but not venal—and one could certainly draw comparisons to those who curry favor and trade links in order to look bigger in the Blogging Ecosystem, or who parlay Google buzzwords into high hit counts.
To work. . . .
If Mike Golby wants to blog, and his friend in the Nigerian banking system wants to pay him to blog, so be it. I may like his blog more, or less, or about the same. And if he starts waxing euphoric about the Nigerian stock market, I’ll just tune him out.
I can’t see what separates blogging from other fields of human endeavor, in which payment is not only permitted, but expected. But maybe I’d see the point better if my eyes weren't three-quarters closed.
It’s easy to say there’s something dubious about a gazillionaire corporation buying off bloggers for a weekend’s mess of pottage. That, most of us can denoucnce comfortably. But some puzzles persist in the more general discussion of blogging and bucks.
For instance: I preach the gospel week after week, arguably (at least within my particular ideological/theological community) a more important function than blogging—but I unashamedly accept money for preaching. And, again granting the premises of the whole operation, the people who pay me to preach have a tremendous stake in my capacity to compose a sermon uninfluenced by the temptation to curry favor with my employers (or “patrons,” if you prefer). I put a lot of effort into preaching, and I’m pretty good at it. Should I decline payment on principle?
If I’m about as good a blogger as I am a preacher, should I decline payment for the hours I put into composing blogs?
Here’s another conundrum for you: I teach to feed my family and, more importantly, to pay the broadband bill. But teaching (as the Epistle of James notes) carries a tremendous responsibility, since a teacher stands accountable both for her own follies and for the follies she transmits to her students. Is my pedagogical compass thrown off by my being paid? If so, does anyone know where I can submit my pedagogical compass to more effective distortion? I have a college tuition bill to pay.
Doc is an Official Journalist, as is Tom. David must be pretty nearly official, if not as unimpeachably official as others; certainly he appears in the Globe and in Darwin. Should professional journalists not blog (because they’re professionals), leaving the field clear for the unpaid bloggers? Doc gets paid to give talks; David and Chris get paid to give talks. Is David more enthusiastic about IBM because they sent him to China? Not so far as I’ve been able to tell.
Here’s another riddle: I happen to be nuts about Apple computers; have been for years. I’m probably more likely to say foolish, biased things in favor of Apple—without their having laid a cent on the table in front of me—than I would be to flatter someone who wanted me to shill for his new digital identity enterprise solution (I’m; not sure what an “enterprise solution” is, but it sounds like the kind of thing a Software Corp. would try to sell).
I do not agree with Dr. Johnson that “no man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.” Extraordinary writers pour their brilliant gifts into words for our delight and instruction all the time, without receiving a cent for their ardor. (Academic writing can be a lot like that, much of the time—sigh.)
Okay: I should take stock.
In this context, Mitch makes a nice point about the relative importance of trust and brands. He suggests that the nineties’ emphasis on brand-cuilding misses the point that the vital quality is trust. But isn’t it still more complicated? May I not trust the Subaru brand, precisely because their autos show evidence of being highly reliable?
But Mitch’s; point holds insofar as he means that a recognizable brand isn’t worth much if it’s synonymous with “untrustworthy.” I will not throw a stone at any particular brand, nor kick one while it’s under indictment for fraudulent business practices, but at that point a recognizable brand might be the last thing you want.
I trust Doc. I try to live and write in ways that make it sensible for you to trust me. I don’t apologize for being paid, nor do I expect others to do without in order to preserve a problematic dispassion from their topics. But—to get us back round to the presenting symptom—if a manufacturer came round to me with a goodie bag and invited me to their hardware pleasure dome, I would (a) almost certainly accept, and (b) write about the trip, and (c) make clear as can be that readers knew what was going on.
That’s no foolproof insulation against bias (I’m a great enough fool to defeat any such insulation you install), but it helps you build the context for knowing how much you trust what I write. And it doesn’t set an arbitrary limit on how I pay for my next change of clothes.
Anyway, Denise and I mused that we might be suitable candidates for Apple “Switcher” ads. Denise had been using a PC until earlier this year; and I used a Kaypro CP/M machine until about 1987.
Now, of course, the great foofaraw surrounds the revelation that Microsoft’s marketing department had a highly original idea and put together an ad suggesting that Mac users had good reasons to convert to MS XP. Unfortunately, the Microsoft example was fiction-based-on-fact (“Trust us,” they say, “the copywriter really was describing her own experience”), while the Apple ads were facts-used-for-marketing (a different kind of fiction). Apple gets the Ellen Feiss fan club, and Microsoft pulls its ad and apologizes.
Maybe I can offer to write an ad for Microsoft, describing what it would be like if I did switch—I mean, “convert.” “I wouldn’t have thought Hell would be so chilly. Look, a snowball!”
“Once they showed me the flying pigs, I realized I just had to get Microsoft XP.”
“George Bush’s statesmanlike peroration in explanation of his decision to demobilize US forces in the Mideast and devote the war savings to building hospitals and universities around the globe convinced me that Microsoft really was where it’s at.”
It’s odd that the two modes of puffery seem to make such a sharp contrast when both Apple and Microsoft are simply plain trying to sell you a new operating system. Microsoft’s was clearly a bungled move, Apple’s a fairly conventional advertising ploy (I remember when Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch), but they’re still just advertising.
Euan and I talked about DIDW, about hanging out in person with people whom we had come to know first online (Euan wasn’t in Denver, but he had met several Cluetrainers at various other points). We agreed (and check me on this if I misstate things, Euan) that it’s a mistake to make a hard distinction between supposedly virtual relationships (on one hand) and face-to-face relationships (on the other). Online relationships are very real, though they’re different. They don’t obviate the satisfaction of meeting people in physical space; but they aren’t pallid substitutes either.
Jon Udell observes that
Most of us [from the Denver DIDW conference] have weblogs into which we project a lot of ourselves. As a result, face-time is different than it otherwise would be. Our digital identities precede us, and create a rich context for live discourse.He notes that online people have a stake in DigID to the extent that it helps preserve reputation awareness; that’s very right, but I still think Doc is closer when he reaches out for the digital identity killer-app (not “identity-killer app”). We will appreciate reputation-security, but we’ll jump on board and promote the DigID app that fires our imaginations the way Napster did. (See what Phil Wolff says about the DigID Napster. . .).
I knew about Phil and Jon before I met them at DIDW, but now I have to look out for them online more vigilantly. Thank heavens they’re aggregatable.
Special thanks, also, to Elliot Noss of Tucows—partly for his restlessly persistent interest in talking through our theological differences and similarities, and partly for representing that under-appreciated online constituency group: Readers. Elliot refuses to blog for several reasons, buit one of them is that he has to contribute to keeping the ratio of readers to bloggers somewhere near a manageable proportion. This has two side effects: I have one less blog to read (phew!), but I miss out on reading what’s on Elliot’s mind from day to day, and I’ll miss that.
DRMA: "The Funky Western Civilization" by Tonio K.; "Shoot Out the Lights" by Richard and Linda Thompson; "Power to the People" by the Chi-Lites; "You Were There" by Ron Sexsmith; "The Old Gold Shoe" by Lambchop; "Kite" by U2; "Jesus Met the Woman at the Well" by the Pilgrim Travellers; "Three Marlenas" by the Wallflowers.
I just never wrote it into my calendar, so a couple dozen people assembled in St. Charles Illinois to hear me spout off about “Rumors of Peace: Christians, Hope, and Trouble,” and I didn’t show them the respect even of turning up. This makes me feel sick and grossly irresponsible, so I will hunker down and berate myself for a few hours. . . .
Here are some other dimensions of the conundrum. In this summer’s “2002 KBCO Kinetic” 5K race, Alie finished in 27:49, where Eric finished in 30:21. In the “14th Runnin' of the Green Lucky 7K,” Alie finished in 39:12, and Eric in 44:45.
Margaret has decided that Alie twisted her ankle, and Eric caught up and they hobbled to the end together. Or she waited for him so they could cross the line together. Hmmm.
He seems like a nice guy.
Has he written any books?
Would he come speak to us?
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