Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Blogging and Sponsorship and Openness

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the THIS-SPACE-FOR-RENT dept.

Jane_the_Great writes "In an article in the Wall Street Journal it is "revealed" that during the 2004 primaries, the Howard Dean campaign hired bloggers hoping that positive things would be said of Dean in the blogs. The news is from the horse's mouth." It's hard to believe that the WSJ is equating prominently disclosed campaign consulting with secret payments from the U.S. Government treasury to TV personalities in order to promote Republican policies, but they are. (Obeying media rule #1, "Both sides are equally bad", even if they aren't.) Nevertheless, there's an interesting, deeper issue: how transparent should blogging (and all media) be? How could transparency possibly be enforced?

5 of 293 comments (clear)

  1. It was transparent by gtaluvit · · Score: 4, Informative

    Markos addresses it Here

    He was transparent about it and kept a constant reminder about it at the top of the page. Hardly close to the Williams scandal.

    --
    - gtaluvit (prnc. GOT-tuh-LUV-it)
  2. Re:Sources please? by Kiryat+Malachi · · Score: 4, Informative

    Columnist denying it.

    USA Today nailing him on it.

    Washington Post doing the same.

    FCC investigation into Armstrong Williams payola.

    Seriously, this is not a conspiracy; it happened. You can argue whether (as USA Today states) he was contractually obligated to be favorable towards vouchers, but he definitely took money to run ads on them... and immediately afterward, wrote columns favorable of the Bush administration's position on the issue. This would be *incredibly* questionable, in and of itself. If he took the money with an additional obligation of running those columns, it is quite possibly illegal.

    --

    ---
    Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
    (I read with sigs off.)
  3. Re:They don't equate them by Kiryat+Malachi · · Score: 4, Informative

    Markos was different because it wasn't secret; he openly admitted he was on payroll, and even had a disclaimer at the head of his blog.

    --

    ---
    Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
    (I read with sigs off.)
  4. You think those bloggers might have responded yet? by bharlan · · Score: 3, Informative

    Hmm, I wonder if those bloggers might have posted any response to this story? After all, they've only had 12 hours so far today. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/14/02014/6287 , http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/1/13/231623/665 , and http://www.pandagon.net/mtarchives/004427.html

    --
    (Reality reasserts itself sooner or later.)
  5. Don't forget Thune by gad_zuki! · · Score: 3, Informative
    Where's the "Zephyr" police and the WSJ on these guys? No disclosure here. Where's the outrage? Oh right, the Republican double standard. From here.
    The two leading South Dakota blogs - websites full of informal analysis, opinions and links - were authored by paid advisers to Thune's campaign.

    The Sioux Falls Argus Leader and the National Journal first cited Federal Election Commission documents showing that Jon Lauck, of Daschle v Thune, and Jason Van Beek, of South Dakota Politics, were advisers to the Thune campaign.

    The documents, also obtained by CBS News, show that in June and October the Thune campaign paid Lauck $27,000 and Van Beek $8,000. Lauck had also worked on Thune's 2002 congressional race.

    Both blogs favored Thune, but neither gave any disclaimer during the election that the authors were on the payroll of the Republican candidate.