A couple of nights ago I got on Skype with Slashfilm’s Dave Chen and Ain’t It Cool News’ Massawyrm for a lively discussion about online ethics. This was spurred by a couple of things: first of all, the FTC released new rulings about blogger ethics and disclosure, something that sent a (silly) chill down the spine of the movie news world. The reality is that this FTC ruling, which demands full disclosure when a company is paying a blogger for placement, isn’t aimed at us. It’s aimed at electronics and car sites, big ticket items like that, where year end recommendation posts are highly influenced by payola. The FTC doesn’t give that much of a shit that Universal flew me to Ireland for a set visit last week.
But Anne Thompson does! Once a Variety writer, Anne has found herself working in the New Media at IndieWire, and she wrote what I consider a very, very unfair piece called “Bloggers Break the Rules.” You can read that here.
That post is what prompted Dave to get Massawyrm and I together on the Skype, and we were supposed to spend about a half hour talking about it. Two hours later we were wrapping up and Peter Sciretta from Slashfilm had shown up on the line (to refute something I said about him, but I think he mistook what I was saying, as I didn’t mean to imply that his trip to London for the Fantastic Mr. Fox junket was in any way payola). It’s a wide ranging and, I think, entertaining discussion that you can listen to in its entirety below: