Paid blog posts -- still the wrong model, one year later.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: paying bloggers to write about you isn't blogging, it's copywriting. Unfortunately, today's Wall Street Journal article doesn't appreciate the difference.

Last year I wished that we would all help the paid blogging model fail quickly. Instead it appears to be gaining momentum. Some may mistake this as a sign of the growth of importance of blogging; in fact, this is a sign that marketers are still thinking in 1.0 marketing ways: whom do I pay to put the message I want in the place I want it?

This is the wrong model for blogging because it contradicts the essence that makes blogging different from other media: blogs are supposed to be the unvarnished thoughts, experiences, and opinions of We, the People. Blogs have attracted people because we no longer trust that the products in TV shows -- even the stories on the news -- are the result of impartial editorial judgment. We turn away from other media because we suspect it is all bought and paid for one way or another. If blogs don't offer a distinctly different alternative, they don't have a reason to exist.

But I'm no purist. If we must have paid blogging, let's all agree that the standard for disclosure should be no lower than the standard for traditional journalists: state that you're being paid at the beginning of the post. If a traditional publication or writer have a conflict, they state it upfront in the article, not buried somewhere in fine print, the masthead, camouflaged with some cutesy name or hidden in some disclosure document in a file drawer somewhere. And this disclosure isn't at the discretion of each writer: it is enforced by the organization writing the check to her.

(Does anyone else appreciate the irony that everyone's all up in arms that Rupert Murdoch will surreptitiously slant the WSJ's editorial approach, but the WSJ seems to think it is OK for bloggers to surreptitiously take money to slant what they write?)

The pro-pay advocates will say, "But if bloggers say upfront that they're being paid, people won't believe the post."

My point exactly. If readers will only believe it when you withhold material information about the motivation of the author, then it should only be published with the disclosure of that motivation.

Or better yet, don't waste everyone's time.