There goes half (or more) of the liberal blogosphere’s revenue.
In the past, I’ve been sent books, some gadgets, and a couple of other things to sample and possibly review (I think I did three reviews, total, of some of the books I received, and I always disclosed that it was a freebie). It’s nice to get them and it’s nice to try them out but, in the end, nobody has ever offered me actual money to write something favorable to them (I must not be A-list enough, but that goes without saying). Even if they did, it’d be a waste of their time, because if I like their product enough to write about it, I will. If I don’t, then there’s nothing they could offer me that would get me to write anything at all about it. I’d like to say that was because of principle — and it is, to a large extent — but it’s also because I have to be interested in or believe in something enough to sit down and write about it.
Most of the stuff I’ve been sent was, shall we say, not worth writing about, let alone trying out. One item, for example — I won’t tell you what it was or who sent it — had me more than a little concerned for my safety should I actually try and use it, so I just threw it out. Another one was “ha-ha” funny, but not really useful for much of anything. Some of the books I received I skimmed through and found them poorly written (in their defense, these were pre-edited books), on a topic that didn’t interest me, or took a position that I disagreed with and failed — miserably — to make its case. Those kinds of books were just set those aside and never finished. Now don’t get me wrong, I love books and I love reading (I can’t even tell you what the last television show I watched was), and if a book is even remotely interesting, I’ll make time to read it. If it’s not — and these weren’t — I won’t bother to finish reading it, and I certainly won’t take the time to review it.
In any case, I wouldn’t consider some company or publisher giving you a free sample of something as having paid you to write something nice about them or their product. It’s part of doing business, basically, that you give some people a freebie and hope they like it enough to tell their friends, but with the full knowledge that there’s a possibility they won’t like it or won’t like it enough to tell anybody. In other words, it’s simply a form of advertising, and not very different from when you get a free sample in the grocery store. Granted, you eat a sausage or slice of pizza at the supermarket, you don’t go home and blog about it (if you do, please step away from the computer and get a life). Nine times out of ten a blogger will receive something and not even mention it. And if they do, it’s usually just a “in the mail today” post and not much else (Instapundit was famous for those kinds of posts). Very few bloggers go on and on and on about something like an infomercial.
If what the FTC is really doing amounts to cracking down on politicians and special-interest groups/companies paying real money (not free samples, mind you) to bloggers to promote their position on something or helping them get elected — all without disclosing it — then yeah, I’m all in favor of them doing that. But with this Administration and the Democrats controlling Congress? Not. Gonna. Happen. As I said in the first sentence, that would destroy half (or more) of the lefty blogs’ revenue, and it would cripple the left-wing movement online (remember, they’re begging for ads from “supporters” that do just what I described).
If it happens at all, which I doubt, it’ll be targeted on whatever righty blogs do it (if there are any, that is…I have no idea if there are or not). The Soros-backed blogs won’t be touched, you can count on that.
