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: Douglas MacMillan is one of the Ninja Hamsters at ADOTAS aka an intern. He previously spent several months working as a dutiful intern under the dictatorship of Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone, only to be set free by our own Kiran. He does not get Jaime skim lattes in the morning.

Selling Inside the Blog: The Story of Wal-Mart, Conservative Bloggers, and the New York Times

Written on: March 14th 2006
Author: by Douglas MacMillan |
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Or, in this case, a handful of conservative bloggers. In his article, Barbaro specifically mentions four blog operators who received updates from Manson: Brian Pickrell of the Iowa Voice, Bob Beller of Crazy Politico’s Rantings, John McAdams of the Marquette Warrior, and Bill Nienhuis of PunditGuy.com. Quite unfoundedly, Barbaro turns his harsh criticisms toward them:

“The strategy raises questions about what bloggers, who pride themselves on independence, should disclose to readers. Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, has been forthright with bloggers about the origins of its communications, and the company and its public relations firm Edelman, say they do not compensate the bloggers. But some bloggers have posted information from Wal-Mart, at times word for word, without revealing where it came from.”

The Times reporter positions these bloggers as parrots, squawking whatever Manson tells them back to the public with no regard for their own journalistic responsibilities.

The fact is, bloggers are just beginning to experience the same barrage of corporate PR that other journalists have dealt with, and indeed relied upon, for many many years. Press releases and corporate mailings have always been a huge part of a reporter’s sources, but that doesn’t mean their intrinsic slant has to make its way in to the story. It is the reporter’s job to determine what aspects of a company’s public relations are pertinent to their readers, and to make clear what aspects of their story came from corporate sources by appropriate citing. “I did credit ‘Wal-Mart’ with providing some of the information I used in a few posts,” Bob Beller tells me. “In others I didn’t. I made that determination based on the context of the post.”

The bigger question Barbaro raises is, should the salesman on the bench next to you be stigmatized and receive a disclaimer for every tip he whispers in your ear? If he merely points you to a story, and allows you to make your own conclusions, must you give him credit?

“The posts I wrote using Manson’s information were simply predicated on one of the links he sent me,” says Rob Port, operator of SayAnythingBlog.com. “These were all mainstream media stories. I linked to the stories in question, provided a pertinent excerpt and then wrote my opinion on the situation. That the link came from Manson doesn’t change what is said in the story nor does it change what my opinion on the matter was. I was not ever told what to write.” In the interest of his own complete transparency, Mr. Port has published his email correspondences with Mr. Manson in PDF format on his site.

Michael Barbaro happened upon an unusual phenomenon, one that will no doubt gain currency with many more corporations as long as blogging continues to hold a defining voice in the consumerist community. He made the mistake of thinking that the blogosphere is some sort of journalist’s utopia, free from all intrusions by marketers. Well, I’m sorry to say, Mr. Barbaro, but they’ve found their way in. As long as corporations don’t employ completely subversive techniques such as paying bloggers off, most people are fine having them join us at the table. Let’s learn to get used to blogging with these guests over our shoulder instead of constantly picking fights with them.

Reader Comments.

Well said and reasoned, Doug. Bloggers today aren’t these independent do-gooders that Barbaro wants them to be. Rather, they are more like the penny press writers around the time of the American Revolution, who freely editorialized and talked about matters of the day. They informed and conveyed information, at their most basic level. Whether the user agreed with it or not was left up to them to decide.

I, as a word of mouth marketer, appreciate the vanguard of blogs and their proliferation in the last few years. The richness of opinion forces users to think before receiving that piece of information.

Are there limits? Absolutely, and you and organizations like WOMMA point them out, especially when it comes to organized power. But if the anti-corporate bloggers all link up and convince others about the “evils of Wal-Mart”, aren’t we as users of that information all the better off? I would think so.