Journalistic ethics -- and blogs
Mitch Ratcliffe criticizes gadget sites for going to the Mobius conference in Redmond, all-expenses paid, and failing to reveal Microsoft's generosity. I think he should have given Gizmodo -- the site I back -- more credit for establishing the principle of disclosure. We went overboard: a post on Gizmodo, before the conference, not under duress afterwards, and I posted here on Microsoft's PR strategy [see below].
Ratcliffe's absolutely right that weblog writers need to establish a code of behavior. In fact, there is an argument that weblog authors have less to disclose, and more space in which to do it, so they should do a more complete job than traditional journalists. Doc Searls, who was also at the Microsoft event, sets a standard, in the post below, with a list of his sources of income so comprehensive he could run for president.
While weblogs should hold themselves to high standards of transparency -- after all, frankness is the defining quality of the medium -- let's not pretend that the traditional media organization provides a shining beacon of journalistic ethics.
The Financial Times, the newspaper for which I worked, let technology writers from London go to the West Coast once a year -- Cisco's treat -- and that was never disclosed to readers. Heck, the editors themselves didn't even want to know. Those celebrity profiles in glossy magazines like Vanity Fair: they're entirely controlled by Pat Kingsley's PR machine. Ask whether Tom Cruise is gay, and that's the last celeb cover you'll get for a while. Even sending a reporter spunky enough to ask such a question: that's a no-no.
Even those newspapers with the toughest standards -- the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times -- make deals behind closed doors. Not for freebies, but for information, the most valuable commodity in the media world. Those M&A scoops which Steve Lipin used to secure so reliably for the Wall Street Journal. How do you think those happen? They're a gift of the Wall Street investment banks, tied to kid-gloves analysis of the transaction, no analysis of the transaction, or a piece on the bank's M&A prowess that miraculously appears a day later. The Wall Street Journal, at least during the boom, was a PR vehicle for Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and the other horsemen of the Wall Street apocalypse.
In summary, I'm glad this topic has come up, and relieved that Gizmodo disclosed Microsoft's invitation ahead of time. But the notion that weblogs are any less upright than established media: that's a joke, and betrays a lack of knowledge of the corruption endemic in mainstream busines and consumer media. When print journalists disclose which PR has fed them the story, and why, then I'll start agonizing about weblog ethics. Mobius [Mitch Ratcliffe] Blogo culpa [Doc Searls] Microsoft PR zeros in on blogs [Henry Copeland] Gizmodo on Microsoft's smartphones [nickdenton.org] Full disclosure [Gizmodo]
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