Credibility and the Advertorial

Thanks to a hand injury, I've had a lot of time the past two weeks to read news but not a lot of opportunity to write about it. In some ways, that's been good, because I've been able to sit and think about some issues I might otherwise have written a knee-jerk reaction to.

I've spent a lot of words here at Profy discussing the new media and the concept of citizen journalism, mulling over how Web 2.0 has changed the way many of us receive and digest our news. I'll readily admit that the majority of the news I receive is via some online form: news feeds or email alerts or IM/Twitter. I often read more than one version of a news item in an attempt to get a more well-rounded view of an issue rather than read it through one person's viewpoint and bias.

That said, however, there are certain sources that I tend to view with less skepticism, blogs or news sites I felt I could read with a certain level of trust. Until, that is, I stumbled upon the Valleywag piece on Microsoft's use of high-profile bloggers to pimp its latest tagline "people-ready."

I'm all for losing the facade of objectivity in journalism. One of the reasons that I left the Comm/J program in college was that I discovered I was far too opinionated to pretend to report things objectively; I think that I've made that pretty apparent here at Profy; if I like something, I say so, and if I don't, I say that as well, even if it's a review that's been solicited.

I do, however, draw a fine line between offering my honest opinion and offering a paid-for opinion. I've been given free products in exchange for reviews before, but it was always with the understanding that the review would be unbiased by that fact; free or not, if the product wasn't any good, I was going to say so.

There are some bloggers whose acceptance of that deal didn't bother me as much. But when it comes to some of the bloggers who write for blogs that purport to have a newsier feel, I now have a distrust, both of the bloggers and of Microsoft themselves.

When it comes to Microsoft, who have been the Big Bad Wolf in the industry for such a long time it's almost an automatic reaction to dismiss stunts like this, if their products were so wonderful, why did they have to pay these folks at all?

As for the bloggers, which included TechCrunch, Gigaom, and VentureBeat in their group (all blogs to which I subscribe), their participation in this campaign can't help but undermine credibility. There are few bloggers who write with absolutely no remuneration, but there is a difference between being a paid blogger and being paid to shill for a company. And if you are willing to do it for one company, why not another? And with what transparency?

As a writer and reviewer, I have nothing if I don't have my credibility. While readers may not always agree with what I have to say, they should at least know my sincerity in saying it.