THE NOIVE O' SOME PEOPLE

I can't rant like my friend Auntie D. can rant, but her brilliant post about Elizabeth A. Cox of Madison Park, Seattle who tried to get over on Auntie D. and failed miserably (yeah, I'm talkin' 'bout you, Elizabitch) has inspired me to set the record straight on a particular issue.

Recently, I was invited by a company called Design Public to blog on the subject of kids and design on their corporate website to help launch their baby and kids product line. (Click to read about the special crib my girls sleep in: Download DesignPublic.htm) I was not offered any kind of a discount, nor was I paid for my piece. But Tonja at some two-bit PR company seems to think I was. I set the record straight in the comments, but I couldn't help but think, "How fucking irresponsible is that? She's blogging about blog ethics but she can't take five minutes to fact-check her post?" It's not like she didn't have my contact information, after all. It's on the internets. All of them. Even the back ups.

I mean, come ON. The topic of her post is "Full Disclosure in Blogging" and she doesn't even bother to check to see if her bald-faced accusations that the bloggers who participated are all money-grubbing whores are correct? Shoot. I'll whore myself out for designer furniture anyday. I'm no fool. If I had been offered a discount (or some Dwell sheets, Eastern king, please. Okay, maybe just a coupla pillow shams? But not European square, I'm not that fancy) I would have taken it. And I would have admitted it. Why wouldn't I?  I'm not blogging to get rich, here. My paychecks don't even cover our monthly grocery bill. But who cares? I love it and am happy that I get paid any amount of money to do it.

There. Just had to get that off my chest.

Comments

[Melanie Lynne Hauser]

Go ahead and get it off your chest. It's too easy for some people to just post whatever they want on the Internet. Everyone understands the situation, I'm sure!

[bitemycookie]

i love how she says "In journalism and public relations, the answers are clear and usually stated in employee manuals and codes of ethics. But the ethical waters are murky for bloggers. Clarifying those waters by being up-front with commercial inducements is blogging the right way."

guess what else is murky? the inky stain of a blabbity bloghole who has confused her ego with ethics. i smelled mint on her breath, didn't you? musta been the shoes.

[Running2Ks]

Absolutely, you should get it off your chest. She had some nerve!

[Dutch]

ha, you just gave her more traffic than she's probably had since she started her blog. I'm sure no one reads that other than people technorating themselves.

[Nancy]

Dutch is probably right -- I read the article to see just what she said. This is a hot button of mine.

I wonder if she considers herself a blogger, journalist, or PR person? Because if she believes that journalism and PR are the "gold standard" for setting rules -- shouldn't she have followed another classic rule of journalism and checked her sources (talked to Design Public and all of the bloggers involved in the Baby Blogapalooza) before making assumptions?

If she's calling for a level of stringency and ethics that she is not willing to subject her own writing to, then she's not really in a position to comment on anyone else's writing. In my opinion. Grrr.

[bitemycookie]

5000 points for nancy. grrrrr, indeed. well said.

[Dutch]

Ha- my sitemeter just said that somebody from Haas & Assoc. (the PR firm that runs the blog CityMama complains about in this post) just visited my blog, through the link on this page.

So they've definitely read your rant, Citymama!

[Busy Mom]

Good Lord! I wrote for them and didn't even merit a discount offer until recently! I just wrote because it sounded like a fun thing to do. Now I'm unethical. Maybe I can work my way up to "evil" if I try real hard.

[Genuine]

I think you're all a bunch of crooks.....*sigh*....how come I wasn't invited to the party?

[CityMama]

Busy Mom--Ha! Yes, I told the powers that be at Design Public about all the hullabaloo and, yesterday, he offered me a discount. *Finally!* I just want to know what took him so damn long! I just bought some sheets at Target...I wish he offered it sooner! ;-)