Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker
It's not just blogs. I've read about newspapers doing this sort of thing now, too. And it's old news in the computer game industry -- magazine articles on games aren't "paid for" specifically, but they're tied to advertising buys.
Reviews should be just that: reviews. They should not be contingent on whether someone has paid for them, or how much advertising they've bought, or anything else. If they are, they're advertisements, and calling them reviews is utterly dishonest.
So no, I wouldn't include reviews from any place that demands (or even accepts) payment for them, and I'd make it clear why I'm rejecting their reviews -- to the public at large, as they're in danger of being tricked into believing that's a real review, as well as the pay-to-play "reviewer".
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Yup - I posted something about this several days ago, when an author friend of mine told me that he was asked by a local paper to pay for a review that a reporter had proposed to do.
I've since spoken with the reporter, whom I met through a mutual friend, and he says this is a new policy at his paper. Within the last week, they have also asked their music reporter to ask bands for review payments. The reporter is furious, and is considering how to respond. He feels it calls his journalistic integrity into question and completely subverts the whole idea of reviews.