I really wish that Jason Calacanis hadn’t mentioned ethics in the ethical chickens are coming home to roost. I happen to agree with his basic premise that accepting money to blog on a topic will cost the blogger credibility on that topic. But I see it as losing a couple of credibility points in a vocation where there will be opportunities to earn those points back.

Which isn’t to say that earning those points back will be easy. It’s going to require taking a hard stand against your own personal interests. And that you reveal enough about your personal interests for us to see that you’re going against them. So how ever much money you made, I hope that it was worth it.

Returning to the question of ethics, I think that more often than not whoever brings up ethics is trying to take the moral high ground. And that labeling someone’s actions as unethical is guaranteed to draw a response. Which may have been Calacanis’ objective. I just think that the conversation would have been more productive without the added heat.

via BlogKits: Blogging Ethics & Advertising, The Fading Grey Line