Get Ready for the New World of Media Ethics

In the good old days before the rise of social media, most established media outlets had pretty strict ethical guidelines designed to impart an air of objectivity on their reporting. No fancy lunches, no cases of liquor, no expensive Christmas presents, no all-expenses-paid trips. Product samples were to be tested and returned or donated to charity.

But the rise of social media has started to change all that — and it’s just beginning. At the same time that non-journalist bloggers are starting to wield increasing influence over public opinion, many traditional newsroom budgets are shrinking and those staffers who remain are being expected to do more with less.

The result: ethical walls are starting to crumble, and fast.

Today’s evidence? A major article in the New York Times about the freebies flowing to influential bloggers in the fashion and beauty industry.

According to the Times:

“Bloggers’ inquiries for products started out as an annoyance,” said Alison Brod, whose namesake public relations firm represents the Laura Mercier and philosophy brands. “It was a cost for our clients. It didn’t seem fair that anyone could say whatever they wanted about a product and have an audience.”

But in the last year or so, as more women turn to blogs for advice on bronzers or facial scrubs, and magazines like Allure and Glamour have started their own beauty blogs, the cosmetics industry has stopped seeing bloggers as bottom feeders.

“It would be foolish to ignore them,” said Ms. Brod, who recently hired an employee whose job is to get bloggers to write about clients.

The same bloggers who once begged for samples are now being sent the latest lip glosses and perfumes, all the free makeup they want and, in some cases, what many beauty editors commonly refer to as swag — luxurious presents to keep them happy, like designer purses or all-expenses-paid trips to Paris.

This doesn’t seem like much a surprise, since the fashion and beauty industry is so dependent on having a positive image with its customers. But it also can’t be long before it spreads, in one form or another, to most other industries, even dry B-to-B businesses like IT and professional services.

What to do? Here are some ideas:

• Know your bloggers: first of all, you should know if there are influential bloggers in your space and what their point of view is. Some will hold themselves to higher ethical standards than others, so you’ll need to figure out who’s who.


• Prioritize: there are important bloggers and then there’s everyone else. Again, you need to know who’s who.


• Develop a strategy: you’ll probably need buy-in from your superiors and others if you start to test ethical limits in terms of freebies or other inducements for coverage. Thinking it through beforehand may save you from unforeseen problems.


• Check out the competition: try to get some intelligence on what others in your industry are doing. It may not make sense to be ahead of the pack, but you really can’t afford to fall too far behind, either.