Pay For Play and Social Media Ethics
May 29th, 2008 by Benjamin KuoI’ve noticed an alarming trend (at least to me) lately, which is the number of folks who have been approaching me offering “pay for play” on their startups or events. Pay-for-play — for those not familiar with it — is the use of either advertising dollars or outright payments to get positive writeups or mentions of your company.
I’ve always strived to conform to what has been a fairly pure, ethical position in journalism, which is to avoid all conflicts of interests, and where you can’t to declare conflicts of interest in any stories or blog posts.
However, I’ve been alarmed to hear from lots of folks proposing some kind of pay-for-play for coverage over the last few months. We always say no, of course–because we do not, and will not–provide positive coverage for companies because they’ve advertised with us, because they’re a sponsor, or for any other reason involving favorable finances. Instead, we try to provide fair, balanced coverage of companies on their own merits.
I’m not sure why I’ve seen this shift lately–perhaps, more companies who are desperate for getting some kind of attention or press–but it seems like some of this is connected to the give and take you see between blogs (”you link to me, I’ll link to you”). It also might be because the majority of blogs do not have a Chinese wall between the editorial and publishing side (including us). Or maybe, it’s just a general decline in what is considered good ethics (case in point: rampant copying of MP3s and trading of online video). In any case, I’ve been a bit alarmed by the number of times this has come up, and frankly, surprised by what — at least a few years ago — was considered a big no-no — being almost a routine occurrence nowadays. I don’t know if this is because there are blogs, video podcasts, or others who are now regularly taking payola for coverage, or if it’s just a general degradation in ethical standards.
Is this the new reality of media today? Or am I just old fashioned and out of touch (this coming from someone who doesn’t copy and trade MP3s but actually pays for his music…)?
