The Mitchell Daily Republic today June 22, 2009 carried an AP story they titled "FTC to monitor blogs for claims, payments". Sounds OK to me since I have never received a dime for posting information in Dakota Today and if I did endorse any product or candidate, I have tried to provide relevant information regarding reasons, etc.
Anyway, the article sort of notes in passing that blogging has risen in importance and sophistication and is somewhat like traditional community journalism but without any real consensus of ethical practices.
If somebody pays a blogger $YYY for posting a glowing review of product X, it seems appropriate that payment information should be provided as part of the review. FTC regulation of that would seem just as appropriate as regulation of a glowing product label that is patently false or only partially or irrelevantly true.
The problem does come in regarding endorsements of political candidates. Newspapers in nearly every election endorse candidates or legislation even though they accept advertising from such political or partisan political candidates or organizations. It may have happened, but I don't remember any established paper or any other business media noting, "Candidate Smith Jones bought $10,000 in ads in our paper before we would give him any publicity let alone an endorsement."
Such disclosure might be good for bloggers, newspapers, TV, Radio, etc. Candidates are more and more marketed as products as if they were rose-scented laundry detergent. BUT, would that violate freedom of press, etc.
Some SD bloggers were busy endorsing John Thune in a previous election even as they were essentially on Thune's payroll but giving the impression they were independent. For all I know that may also have been the situation with BAD LANDS BLUE blog supporting Democratic candidates and Party in the most recent election, but I really don't know.
But, whatever ox is gored by such legislation or regulation, I am in favor of it. If Truth in Lending is a good idea (and it is), Truth in Publishing or Truth in Blogging by whatever means is probably also appropriate.
If some of us bloggers want now and then to be taken seriously, we better adhere to some reasonable standard of truth and also disclose factors which might influence us and content that readers really should be provided... even if the FTC never gets around to doing it or is as woefully lackadaisical in enforcement even if no blog is going to get too big to let fail like banks and insurance companies that have pretty much successfully fought regulation and truly informational disclosure useful to customers or potential customers, etc
[[ NOTE: Prairie Progressive Blog has a post which handles the freedom of speech issues better than I did here: Prairie Progressive on FTC Regulation of Blogs --Added June 27, 2009]]
*** Stay tuned even if Dakota Today doesn't have an official Regulated by FTC Seal of Approval---- Doug Wiken
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