Polluting The Blogosphere: Pay-per-Post

Thanks in no small part to bloggers, this is an era of increased media transparency, and many shifty dealings between the business and editorial sides have been exposed. Recently The Wall Street Journal reported that advertiser-produced video segments have shown up on local news shows. My colleague Eamon Javers unmasked pundits whose op-ed page pieces touted initiatives from corporations that paid them. An undisclosed PayPerPost placement on a little-seen blog isn’t the most egregious thing out there, but it’s far from honest. Media may be more transparent, but the line between authentic editorial and paid placement is still often smeared, and defenders of disclosure can feel, like the proverbial buggy whip company, that they’re terribly outmoded.

Read this article from BusinessWeek and a blog from CNet’s Web 2.0 Blog