More Disclosure
I had an e-mail discussion earlier this week on blog promotion and advertising with Hugh MacLeod, who is launching a blogvertising agency and also makes some very cool blogcards. We were discussing the situation where some bloggers who were writing about a new drink without disclosing they were being compensated for it.

In trying to make clear how that's different than The Week magazine inviting a bunch of bloggers to their newsmaker panels, I decided it would be fair for me to post that distinction.

The Week has started inviting a few New York bloggers to their panels, which are open only to invited guests and members of the media. I've been to two - one was a breakfast and one was a lunch. Like everyone else there, the bloggers didn't pay a dime and were served free feed and drink (no bar drinks.) There were free copies of the magazine, as well as goody-bags that consisted of a block of note paper with the Altria (see Philip Morris) logo, a spiral notebook with the Altria logo, a pen with the TIAA-CREF logo, a pen with the UBS logo and I think another notepad with another corporate logo. There were coffee mugs (used as pen holders in the middle of the table) with "The Week" logo that Paul Frankenstein was eyeing but declined to take even though I think they were there for the taking.

When I was first invited to one of these things by a PR guy, I kidded him that he was only inviting bloggers to get the extra ink from us. Indeed, true, he said, but mentioned that "The Week" really is a proponent of blogs. In addition, he assured me they didn't assume the coverage would be all positive.
It didn't occur to me to include those elements when I wrote about the two events because it's pretty routine for journalists to turn down "gifts" but eat a free meal while covering an event. Plenty of people could argue about that policy, so I figured that for purposes of this blog I'll make mention of even the free meals, drinks, notepads, new cars or pet monkeys.
- posted by Amy @ 2/27/2004 10:16:00 AM