so slate (and jack schaefer) think its "overreaching" to have the feds require disclosure of bribes paid to bloggers to tout a book, movie, videogame, etc? this is a very republican point of view - that the public has no right to distinguish between an advertisment masqueraging as a blog, and an actual non-bribed review

but i'm being cruel to republicans - they long ago conceded (endorsed) the necessity of requiring investment analysts to disclose whether he/she owns the particular stock they are touting, or if they recently bought or sold it. something about "the publics right to be informed about opinions which are not necessarily objective"

are bloggers (and slate columnists) guaranteed to be so ethical that they would never (never!) give a glowing movie review to a piece of trash, simply in exchange for big profitable advertisments appearing in the Washington Post, their parent company?

oh wait - would that be the same, not-so-squeaky-clean washington post that was caught earlier this year trying to charge $50,000 a chair for "face time" with Obama officials during breakfast and lunch? the Washington Post which cancelled this arrangment after it was disclosed, agreeing THAT was a conflict of interest, too?

i dont think reporters are in a good position to say the reporting profession can self police themselves without conflicts

This is a huge problem, and one of the worst ideas I have ever heard of. The elphant in this particular room is the possibiliyt of political prosecutions. Get someone mad at something you write on your little blog and they dime you out to the FTC.

This will be a great thing for the FTC, though. Their budget will have to increase dramatically to hire investigators to do all that investigating.

Are we really so feeble-minded and easily led that we can't make any decisions for ourselves without all the information being checked by someone else?

Yes, I'm sure this is a big conspiracy to get political enemies and raise revenue for the govt. I'd better put on my tinfoil hat to keep the FTC from reading my thoughts!

Mattski:

You really didn't read the post did you?

First I never said anything about a conspiracy, I just said it made it possible to abuse bloggers for political reasons. If you may recall, the IRS has been used that way on occasion.

Second, it would hardly raise revenue for the government to have to hire people to check blogs for not disclosing that someone gave them a free toaster or whatever that they reviewed.

Next time read before shooting your mouth off.

i'm not sure what "disclose your bribes" has to do with FTC harraassment and "political prosecutions"

that sort of harassment happens irrespective of whether or not a blogger is accepting payola from corporations or special intererst groups to extole their viewpoints

No, harassment can still be done, but why make it easier? And, for that matter, why assume that everyone is so dumb that they can't see that some people will shill for anyone who gives them something?

I'm not going to rush right out and buy something because someone's blog gives it a thumbs up.

And for that matter, there is always the timeless wisdom of H. L. Mencken that /so perfectly characterizes so many of the well-intentioned horrors so popular with Slate:

“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it.”