Amsterdam: The controversy

Kevin Roderick seems skeptical about the up-and-upness of the Amsterdam blogger vacation.

For the record, before agreeing to accept the tickets, I asked Sebastian Paauw of Holland.com point blank, "What do you expect in return for these tickets?" The answer: a specific amount of advertising. Well, no problem. I sell advertising here. If Holland.com had offered me $1000 cash for the same amount of advertising, I would have accepted it. But Holland.com offered barter instead, and I accepted that. I don't find it an unusual arrangement. The whole thing was brokered by Blogads, which handles all of my other advertising as well.

I also agreed to be interviewed by Holland.com about my trip. Which, as someone who accepts free trips to film festivals in exchange for doing Q&As, I did not find unusual, either.

But some critics (well, okay, one incoherent right-wing crank who would have liked an invite) are all in a tizzy about this Amsterdam thing.

There's a key concept here that I think is important: Personal weblogs are not newspapers.

The main reason a reporter for, say, the L.A. Times would not accept money or goods from an advertiser is that reporters at the L.A. Times don't sell advertising for the newspaper.

But at a personal weblog like this, the advertising department and the editorial department are the same person. There's really no getting around that. I benefit directly and personally every time someone buys an ad on this blog. What would be unholy at a newspaper is literally business as usual at the one-man shop that is Brian Flemming's Weblog. If accepting goods from Holland.com is ethically unsound, then so is accepting cash on the barrelhead from The Church of Reality.

But there's a natural check on my ethics that is not present at a large newspaper. If the L.A. Times prints a full page ad for Home Depot, and in that same issue of the paper is a front-page story about big-box retailers, readers have no practical way to determine if the ad money influenced the placement of the story. The size of the paper and the complex manner in which its content is generated provide cover for any potential corruption. If the money came into the ad department, which then sent a nudge to the news editor, you would never know.

But here at Brian Flemming's Weblog, you'd see that corruption plain as day. Under my picture are the ads. You know that the money for those ads went into my pocket. You know I generate the original content here. You don't have to guess. Transparency matters.

But, of course, it still comes down to trust.

With the L.A. Times, one institution does two things: It takes in money from advertisers, and it publishes original content. To trust the content, you have to trust that the institution is not corrupt.

With Brian Flemming's Weblog, one person does two things: I take in money from advertisers, and I publish original content. To trust the content, you have to trust that the person is not corrupt.

I do trust the L.A. Times, by the way. I know that the advertising dollars pay the reporters' salaries. But I also know--from reading the paper since I first learned to read--that the reporting in the paper can generally be trusted.

I also trust Tony Pierce. I know that the Blogads dollars go straight into his pocket. But I've been reading Tony's blog for years now, and I trust that he wouldn't let ad dollars cloud his judgment. And by comparing the ads to his writing, I'd be able to tell pretty easily if that happened. Tony discloses who he's getting money from every day--just look at the ads.

Finally, to state the obvious, the stakes are a bit higher in one publication. I look to the L.A. Times for reliable reporting of facts about my city government, the movie industry and the world. I go to Tony Pierce's weblog ("nothing in here is true") to find out who he's lying about having sex with today.

Whew! Sorry this entry is so long. I have to write 500 words about Holland.com every day as part of the deal.

Kidding.

Not really.

No, really, kidding.

You'll just have to trust me.