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Re: A question about pay and Influence
In principle I don't disagree with this. I think it is important to feel you can trust your source...but I also think that everyone has their own particular guidelines on this, and each person has to define that for themselves. I think it was admirable to make the posting and get it out in the open. I didn't see it as an attack...but I don't want us to lose sight of the fact that the majority of journalist and writers (including bloggers) are somehow part of the food chain. We write in protest about some items and applaud others (we all have agendas regardless of finance)...and somehow we all take our compensation from the "man." Including myself...I am paid by a publisher, that although highly respected, takes advertising dollars from companies that make products...which pays my fees. We all have to keep the lights on. Our responsibility as readers is to educate our internal dialogue and bullshit meter to separate the good from the bad. This to me is our issue, not Doc's. Some writers I don't trust at all based on their track record. As far as blogging is concerned, I feel the line between journalism and journals is razor thin. Each one seems to cross the line between each realm. I started blogging so that I had a forum to speak my mind without an editor changing the meaning of my words...to give me a place where I can speak without having to schlep my wares for money. But...at the end of the day, we all have to answer to ourselves. One last thought...like Doc, I'm also not comfortable with holding him up as an icon of blogging integrity...not because I don't agree with or trust what he says, but because the moment I immortalize him, I feel I lose my right to question him. I want sinners, not saints. However, I think that the letter you sent and the postings made after...ARE a prime example at what I would hold up to someone and say "this is an example of what blogging is all about." That screams integrity.
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