New media, new ethics?

Dave Winer has a spot-on post this morning about reporters accepting freebies; that is to say, the ethical implications of reporters who cover Twitter but who receive huge, measurable benefits by being placed on Twitter’s Suggested User List (SUL).

“The New York Times and many other media outlets ban the acceptance of these freebies on ethical grounds, because there could be an appearance of buying favorable coverage.” To me, the free placement on the SUL and the benefits it bestows, are exactly equivalent. Elsewhere in the Times, and in many other media outlets, the number of followers is treated as a measure of relevance.

The issue that Dave explores is just the tip of the iceberg, however. The larger question is how, when large journalistic institutions are fragmenting into ever smaller organizations (often single individuals who run a blog), does a journalist maintain integrity and yet make a living? A solo journalist cannot establish a firewall between the revenue-producing and the editorial sides of the business, for they are both the same. In essence, it means that every individual who blogs alone, and who makes money from her blogging, is at the least tempted or at the worst corrupted by the influence of those who are paying the bills.

Full disclosure of a blogger’s interests would, of course, help people make decisions in determining the validity of their reporting and commentary. But, even then, the credulity of readers is often stretched to the point where they question the author’s motives. For example, if you browse through the blog posts at Yahoo! Tech, a site I helped to build, you’ll see comments to the effect that “this is just advertising; of course the blogger will say good things about product X, because product X advertises on the site.” In reality, of course, there’s a very wide gulf between the people who sell advertising and the people who write the blog posts. The bloggers are not compensated in any way that depends on their position towards a particular product, and they are, in fact, prohibited from accepting any form of compensation from an advertiser; this disclaimer appears on every page of the site:

Opinions expressed by the Advisors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Yahoo! Inc. Yahoo! receives no compensation from any manufacturer or distributor nor does it compensate any Advisor for the coverage of any product or service in any Advisor’s content.

And yet, in spite of this, and in spite of the enormous negative repercussions that would arise should a Yahoo! blogger found to be in violation of such, users often cannot accept the independent stance of the bloggers. And, if this is true at a multi-billion-dollar company, how much more so for the independent journalist who is merely struggling to pay the bills?

I don’t have a clear answer for the bigger question of how to ensure ethical behavior among independent bloggers, but it’s obvious that bloggers who write about a product or service should definitely refrain from accepting anything of value from that company, whether it is the intangible Suggested User List or a much more corporeal gift.