Two things I’ve avoided in my ranting here. First, referring to this site as a “blog” just because I changed from a useless, difficult to maintain format to using WordPress to maintain the site (I’m a master of self-delusion.). Second, writing about blogging. Blogging about blogging is just too self-reflexive for me, like those TV specials about how TV is bad for kids or the way talk radio hosts constantly pat talk radio collectively on the back. But I just can’t help it….
I’ve been reading with interest blogger commentary and news on the ethics of blogging and the good and bad of blogging for pay. Most noteably I’ve been following the posts and discussions on creating A Blogger’s Code of Ethics at Wizbang and The Coalition of Unpaid Bloggers at the Fireant Gazette. My thought on the first was that many of the proposals were dangerously close to subsituting manners for ethics in a way that isn’t good for debate and is even worse for entertainment value. My thought on the second was that there’s nothing wrong with being paid to do something and that those with any integrity aren’t going to change what they say for a buck, especially considering that there’s always somebody with money on either side of an argument.
So, I was reading my regular reads and somehow ended up on a site I have rarely visited in the past. This particular site is very popular, but the predominance of short posts on the latest news have always seemed, to me, a bit less useful than clicking the “News” tab on Google or Yahoo. On this, visit, I noticed something in the ads that confirmed my point (and proved the integrity, I think, of the site owner). There was a blog-ad for American’s for Growth Through Trade complete with photo of Ronald Reagan. Further down the page was a Blogad for the ACLU. Reading the selection of news that Glenn Reynolds found interesting and his briefs on each today, I couldn’t give you a firm read on his politics, but I can say that in at least one pretty prominent case being “paid” doesn’t seem to be a problem. Perhaps I’ll visit more often.