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Amsterdam Aftermath: Debating Blogger Ethics

My piece last week on "A Luxurious Junket For Bloggers" has sparked a debate about blogger ethics, and that's a good thing. Even as they rightly hound journalists, public officials, businessmen and others about ethical breaches, bloggers are loathe to discuss the ethics of their own behavior. They should look inwardly as well.

Yesterday's edition of The Hotline's Blogometer had a good pro-and-con roundup of the commentary in response to my piece, including more thoughts from me. Much of the reaction has been critical, particularly from the bloggers who are taking a government-funded trip to Amsterdam, Netherlands, in exchange for advertising space and post-trip interviews with officials from the nation's tourism board.

On the other hand, even some readers of those blogs see at least the appearance of a conflict of interest. Here are some snippets pulled from posts or comments at Americablog, Pandagon and TalkLeft:

Twenty years ago, if you were a journalist in an urban area, you got constant offers of these kinds of junkets. Most newspapers eventually made accepting them taboo. The argument that you call them like you see them doesn't mean a lot unless you actually do report something negative. And your readers have no idea what you may be withholding.

It doesn't matter whether it's worth more or less than an ad buy. John [Aravosis of Americablog] would be the first one to get all high and moral if a journalist accepted such a free trip. He'd go on and on about it is bound to affect the journalist's objectivity. This is no different -- everyone here knows exactly what the Dutch want, and the bloggers who go on this trip are going to give it to them.

[L]et's not pretend that any of us do not have a price. That our integrity is not for sale at some point? While I do not believe in bogeymen, nor do I believe in saints. Everyone is corruptible. ... [M]aybe we could do with a bit more self-awareness and a tad less self-righteousness.

You[r] advertiser is paying for a free trip to Europe. Perhaps it doesn't look good.

Plenty of other blogs are talking about the trip, too. Here is a sampling of opinions for Beltway Blogroll readers to peruse:
-- Ace of Spades HQ
-- Centerfield
-- Gridskipper
-- Hammer of Truth
-- Kerfuffles
-- Suburban Guerilla
-- Tapscott's Copy Desk
-- This Space For Rent
-- Thoughts from an Empty Head
-- The Three C's of Convergence
-- Tim Worstall

Posted by | 07:22 AM

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Comments

Have you tried going to the "Bloggers in Amsterdam" site recently? When I tried, a username and password dialog box popped up and when I clicked "cancel" this appeared:

"401 Authorization Required

This server could not verify that you are authorized to access the document requested. Either you supplied the wrong credentials (e.g., bad password), or your browser doesn't understand how to supply the credentials required."

Philip | 02.01.06 01:10 AM

Phil -- The site should load for you now.

Justin | 02.01.06 09:00 AM

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