It seems like France might be the first country to face this issue… You certainly know how blogging is popular in France, and fortunately or unfortunately we are sometimes experiencing some strange mixes that might be considered as out of the PR ethics boundaries, but you’ll tell me if you agree or not with this story.
We have a french blogging magazine, it’s an online one only, that was initially the initiative of several bloggers, who decided to scan the french blogosphere and share informations on their blog. Nothing really original, but a good idea. And certainly the first blogzine in France. Few months ago, this blogzine has been relaunched after having being bought by…. a PR agency… Some additional bloggers have been “hired” to blog there, and between them you have one professional journalist, also blogging in the same time for a national daily.
So first question: is it a good thing to see a PR agency acquiring and by the way “controlling” a media …? What about impartiality ? Then, second question, what about having bloggers that are at the same time professional journalist and blogger, say citizen journalist ? Can both coexist in the same guy ?
An other amazing thing happen recently: a blog has been launched to cover Apple Expo in Paris, some bloggers have been hired/asked to cover the show. And what happened ? Some of these bloggers, official member of this grassroots journalist team have been censured… Will you still be surprised if I tell you that Apple Expo is the client of the PR agency who launched this blog ? And is also the one who owned the media in the first part of my post…?
Things are going so fast in the blogosphere, it seems that boundaries are outpassed sometimes, we saw fake blogs, bloggers paid to blog, but in this case I am describing, I am afraid the situation is much more dangerous for the balance between each actors of the communication chain.
5 comments
9/26/2005 at 11:26 am
Justin
Sounds like fun times over in France Guillaume. I can’t say that I agree with the PR agency buying a blogzine, because I think the blogzine now has an agenda to push.
The same could be said for the bloggers that were hired to cover the Apple Expo, however each of these bloggers has to answer to their own personal code of ethics and decide whether to blog impartially or not. So there is some gray area there.
I do think that a professional jounalist and blogger can exist in the same person. I think that, again, it comes down to personal ethics. I say this because I think that if I was in that position, I would be able to differentiate between what I was paid to talk about as a journalist and what I blogged about as an individual. This may not be true for everyone.
I guess until there is some sort of governing body for bloggers, a professional organization or something, which may never happen, then the boundaries for blogging will never “officially” be in place. I think if enough people decide that someone has stepped out of bounds, then there will be plenty of talk about it in the blogesphere and that will probably deter others from doing the same thing.
9/27/2005 at 3:47 pm
Allan Jenkins
Any blogzine owned by a PR agency is going to need to prove itself. I’d be skeptical, but I would continue reading until they proved otherwise. But hearing that some of the writers have been censored doesn’t bode well for that effort, does it?
As for being both a blogger and a “______” (fill in the blank: paid journalist, freelancer, copywriter, PR practitioner, management consultant — just to name my job titles), I’m sure writers can wear multiple hats, as long as they make clear where there loyalties lie. And then walk the talk.
Justin, there’ll never be a governing body for bloggers, anymore than there’ll be one for ants or bees. Like ants and bees, bloggers will figure it out. Without a governing body.
9/27/2005 at 3:48 pm
Allan Jenkins
By the way, G., I was very impressed by Loic’s presentation at Reboot. France is way ahead on blogging.
9/27/2005 at 4:19 pm
Justin
I like the ants and bees comparison.
10/2/2005 at 9:26 pm
marie
As long as the PR firm that owns the blogzine covers more than just their clients and their clients’ interests, I think it could work. It would be the same as a company owning a newspaper and a TV station. If they covered everything in the newspaper, not just the advertisers and their interests of the TV station, it works. It is all about being unbiased and ethical. If they become unethical, bloggers will simply have to quit using the blogzine, much like readers quit reading a newspaper or watching a news magazine television show.
Censorship is not ethical at any point, so if this blogzine is censoring its writers, then it is not being unbiased and isn’t providing the information that is part of its mission. Therefore, if bloggers quit subscribing to it and begin blogging about what is happening, maybe that will be a call for the PR firm that owns it to change its practices and rules for the blogzine.
As with anything on the Internet, readers must evaluate what they are reading to see if it is credible. The blogzine sounds like it would be harder to evaluate since it is a legitimate magazine and only those that knew history on the blogzine would know about its affiliation with Apple and the censorship issues. So, this presents a problem when ethical issues arise.