Want to know the difference between a blogger and a journalist? Shower them with gifts and see what happens.

No, seriously — great article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, that as far as I can see, got no coverage in the corners of the blogosphere that I usually frequent. It covers how big business (in this case, big media) acknowledges the influence and power of blogging and bloggers in informing professiona media outlets, and sometimes, the public at large. But more importantly, its an article which discusses in some depth how some companies are trying to win the affectations of bloggers by showering them with gifts and freebies, in hopes to a) get some coverage and b) get favourable coverage.

The Payola Debate Isn’t New

The issue around payola / blogola isn’t a new one, and has been hotly debated for a few months since PayPerPost and its many breathren have appeared.

On one side, you have bloggers who try and stand by their principles and suggest that the most important part of their blog isn’t for sale — their opinion. On the other hand, you have other bloggers who find that there isn’t an ethical quandry, and are happy to monetize their blogs any way they can.

The WSJ article, I think, highlights the dilemma of the latter kind of bloggers and what it means to be a blogger in general.

Blogging is an independent activity, where your actions are governed by your own sense of morals, ethics, and values. Unlike reporters or journalists you don’t report to anyone, and no one proof reads your material. You’re not beholden to any set of standards except those that you set yourself, and those that the blogging community that you’re part of also expects of you. It is also informed by many other kinds of factors, such as the kind of environment you live in — online and off — and other ‘mundane’ things, such as your own financial situation.

When blogging was a niche phenomenon, all of this was quaint, but of no real importance.

Now that blogging (by some) has been recognized to be a force amongst PR folk and media players, the conundrum is one where you have some bloggers who own influential blogs online, but live humble, modest, and unassuming lives off-line. These same bloggers are being targeted by multi-national firms who are literally swimming in cash.

Can anyone say “shooting fish in a barrel?”

When Big Media Does Payola, Do Bloggers Stand a Chance?

Of course it would be the easiest, smartest, and most cost-effective strategy to target bloggers. Public relations folk of all stripes must be salivating at the prospect.

Compared to journalists who have years of training — and more importantly, exposure — regarding double dealings, attempts to influence their opinion, and perhaps are used to working in an enviroment where there are controls on how they *could* be influenced, there are no such restrictions on bloggers.

And I don’t think that there ever could be.

The WSJ goes onto describe how the producers of the show “The New Adventures of Old Christine” feted a number of mommy bloggers by flying them out to the show, giving them freebies, and got a chance to meet Julia Louis-Dreyfuss. Now, it just happens to be that this particular show has actually received some critical acclaim.

But what happened if it was a dud?

I’m not singling out Mommy-bloggers now.

Could *any* blogger of average and modest means, who has never been to a movie set in their entire lives, *ever* right an unbiased review of what happened? How could their opinions of the show NOT change, and for the better?

If Microsoft decided to fly me and my family out to Seattle for a weekend to tell me how great Vista was, and got me to try out a bunch of products, coupled with a photo op with Bill himself — would that affect *me*?

I’ll be honest — I don’t see how it couldn’t.

So what now? What does the future hold? If the influence of bloggers and the opinions and news and what not doesn’t change, will we see a return to a payola system whereby the media — in this case, bloggers — are now be in the back-pocket of companies big and small, in return for freebies, invitations, and the cachet of being “in” with the industry?

I don’t know.

The better question, as I have posed in some of my older posts, is what about the checks — what about the balances?

The Single Factor That Stops Blogola … Is Pretty Ineffective

If bloggers find themselves in these positions where they can’t but help but find themselves under the svengali-like influence of Free Stuff and Insider Access, what could possibly make them do a double check?

Some of them will have an internal barometer, and will continue to blog true to their heartrs anyway. Or, not take companies up on their offers. I anticipate these bloggers to be shunned at large by public relations folk.

The rest? It will largely depend on the response and reactions of their own peers, and most importantly, their own readers. If their own readers don’t know, or if they know, but don’t care, that their favourite blogger was feted at a huge party for that product opening, and — suprise, suprise, you see a favourable review the next day for adult diapers on a tech blog, then, much to the chagrin of some idealist a-list bloggers, nothing will happen.

If the blogger’s community of readership deems it “ok” then things will carry on.

The kicker with this? Unless the percieved transgressions are particularly large, or, unless the site itself is large, I don’t think “community reaction” for any given blog will be large enough to cause *any* kind of change.

Is that a little jaded of me?

I don’t think so.

While its a bit of a stretch, you can look to any number of medium sized blogs that, for example, do paid reviews. Their audience *knows* that the review is paid for — and in some cases, at rent-money levels. While some or most of them are thorough, you can’t help but wonder how much influence the fact that its been paid changes the opinion, though. Not only because of the literal aspect of money changing hands (and the law of reciprocity — its Cialdini, read it), but because for many of these bloggers their ability to get *future* review me type gigs is dependent on writing good reviews now.

Has the audience for *any* of those blogs changed? Have they all left en masse? Declared that getting something in exchange for writing about that something is a terrible violation of blogging’s ethics?

For the large part, the answer is a resounding “no”.

I won’t single out any blogs, but its easy to check them out. Review-Me is a good example because you can look through a marketplace of blogs who are selling their opinions posts.

1. Go to Review-Me.com
2. Search through the Marketplace for blogs
3. Sort or filter according to the highest payout per post
4. Check out the first ten blogs or so, and plug their URL’s into Alexa.

What you’ll find is that none of them have suffered any relative change in their traffic.

Now, granted, their is some self-selection here. Clearly the ones which are *successful* at this, that is, whose audience doesn’t already mind, will continue being in the market place.

But having said that, I cannot recall a single example where someone *had* tried, and it *did* result in a huge change in their readership.

So — long post, but here’s the take home message.

The Time Is Now for Companies To Exploit Bloggers

Blogging’s influence has outstripped many blogger’s own ability to withstand the influence of companies, whether it be free things, swag, access or what have you. This will make it easier for companies to buy opinion, and in fact, such a marketplace, you could argue, is in its infancy *already*. The *fact* that many bloggers have signed up for such a marketplace, is, I think, indicative of the fact that their own financial situations are not a “mundane” issue at all. Furthermore, and the most important factor which might act as a check and balance, has, so far, been a non-issue.

Its a pretty pessimistic view on things, but also, I think, a realistic view on things, and one geared for the short term. Who knows how things will be in 1, 5, or 10 year’s time? By that time, blogging as a form of media will mature — as will the commensurate experience of the bloggers themselves.

By that time will reader’s expectations have changed? Will the expectations of bloggers change? Will the expectations of their peer group have changed?

Perhaps.

And perhaps these kinds of shennanigans won’t be tolerated. Or, pehaps they’ll be de rigeur.

But in the short term, I think this is a phenomena that will continue to grow unabated and largely unfettered. Some bloggers will stand out and take a stand. Many of them, I suspect are in financially independent position to do so, or, perhaps, are industry professionals *already* where the allure of industry access holds no attraction.

But for the rest … well, if I was a Public Relations professional I’d be dancing a little jig while I could.

Update: Looks like a few others *have* weighed on the issue:

• Jeff Jarvis via BuzzMachine covered it with his own perspective as he started Entertainment Weekly
• The guy who heads who used to head up Lulu’s communication department gives his own take on things (its a good thing)
• Gawker also mentions how it has “some” sort of policy towards this kind of thing