Blogs really are like grassroot journalists

Blogs have it made. Finally they can be taken as seriously as the "real" media moguls and old-school journalists. How do we know? Some in the ranks are shilling stuff in their writing for cash. Yup, product placement is all the rage, in blogs and newspapers alike.

Polluting The Blogosphere "Bloggers are getting paid to push products. Disclosure is optional "

But media today is so cynical that you have to come out and say that shilling without disclosure is a bad idea. Like Murphy, one BlogStar client shrugs off such concerns. "With a large enough network, you get a good representation of [bloggers] who disclose, who disclose partially, and others who go another way," says Mike Friedman, director of interactive marketing services for Darden Restaurants, who worked with BlogStar this spring for the 32-location chain Bahama Breeze. Friedman says BlogStar built Web traffic, and stats from blog tracker Technorati show that mentions of Bahama Breeze spiked during the promotion.

Marketers Say They Pay for Play in News Media (NYT login req.)

An annual poll conducted by PR Week magazine and Manning Selvage & Lee, a public relations firm, asked 266 marketing executives if they had ever paid for broadcast or editorial placement. Nearly half said yes. And nearly 46 percent of those who had not paid for placement replied that they would consider doing so in the future.

Pay for play is bad news AdAge (login req. +1 credit)

A new survey finds that nearly half of senior marketing executives have paid for editorial coverage in print or on TV news. This is ethically deplorable, unconscionable and unacceptable.