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January 08, 2005

More On Armstrong Williams

It was wrong, and he should have disclosed it.

Some are struggling with the same issues in relation to their work and blogs.

Instapundit:

I've never had anybody offer me money in exchange for blog posts (bogus claims regarding Wonkette notwithstanding), but I have been offered substantial amounts of money to author opeds furthering the agenda of some people. I declined; even if it were an opinion I already held, undisclosed third-party payola just seemed wrong to me. I think the same thing's true for blogs, which is why I think that the DaschlevThune folks should have disclosed the money they got.

On the other hand, payola for opeds of the sort I describe above isn't so unusual that people should think the blogosphere is more likely to suffer from undisclosed payments than other areas -- something that the Armstrong Williams case illustrates, too, of course. I'm rather skeptical of the notion of some sort of Official Blogger's Code of Ethics, with blogs that sign on displaying the seal of approval. Kind of reminds me of the Comics Code Authority, and I'm generally skeptical of those kinds of ethics codes anyway.

I think that overall, the best protection against that sort of thing is for people to read a lot of blogs. Astroturf blogging is likely to ring false, and at any rate a blogger, however popular, doesn't enjoy the kind of quasi-monopoly position that a newspaper journalist or a broadcaster does, making efforts to shape the debate via sub rosa funding far less likely to be successful.

If a "quasi-monopoly" broadcaster such as Armstrong Williams is offered money to advocate a position that is represented to his audience as his independant commentary then he damned well had better disclose it. To do otherwise is to flat out cheat and con his audience, regardless of whether he holds precisely the same position. The audience must have this information in order to form the proper perspective with regard to his remarks.

What was he thinking?

UPDATE: Wizbang rounds up some other reactions.

Posted at 02:40 AM Pacific