Beware the "Clogs" Among Us

Having started my blog in January of 2005, I'm a relative newcomer to the blogosphere. When I first learned of this medium I was both suspicious and disdainful, thinking that it was for geeks, gamers and Trekkies.

But I quickly learned otherwise. The blogosphere is a community of individuals speaking from the heart, expressing their true voices - some not so interesting, some insane, some revelatory, some ignorant, some bigoted, some sexy, some funny, some wise, but all individual. The blogosphere is democracy and freedom of speech in its purest and most robust form. In fact, technology has given "the people" the tool and the power to circumvent the corruption and dishonesty of journalism, politics, and industry and bring raw truth back into the mix. It's the old town hall meeting reborn.

As our favorite ex-con would say: "It's a good thing."

The blogosphere empowers free speech as never before in world history. Virtual town meetings thrive, and media, corporations, politicians and "experts" are being held accountable as never before.

"First reported in the blogosphere" is becoming a common refrain in the news and even in Congress.

Corporate America killed investigative reporting and seriously dampened true journalism. Happily, the blogosphere has stepped in to replace it. Of course, the blogosphere is also full of crap and misinformation, and journalists and readers have to sort through it and find the precious jewels, of which there are many.

Caveat emptor.

Inevitably the blogosphere has been invaded by the communications pros and a growing number of blogs are now counterfeits: commercial websites masquerading as blogs.

I call them clogs.

Blogs, for those of us who've forgotten, is a personal journal, a web-log, a blog.

What industry seems incapable of seeing is that once blog content is guided by a checkbook rather than an individual human heart, it is no longer a blog, it's a commercial journal, a commercial weblog, a clog.

We've all heard of corporate employees who lost their jobs for running blogs; now corporate employees are paid to run blogs that toe a company line and represent the "voice" of teams of marketing and sales experts.

Paidcontent.org recently posted on the controversy surrounding one of these counterfeits and reminded us that the blogosphere has many wolves in blog's clothing.

"Edelman PR...produced a travelogue blog for Wal-Mart without revealing who was paying for it."

The agency has since apoolgized for its "mistake," but fails to offer an explanation for "how it happened."

Once exposed, the site was quickly taken down, but the history of it can still be found thanks to Google Cache.

The writer makes the point that the people behind the Wal-Mart "blog" hoped to generate blogosphere word of mouth and buzz through the use of a counterfeit blog.

Article Author: Richard Rothstein

A native New Yorker with decades of experience in journalism and public. Born the same year as modern Israel and still with as many issues. We're both working on it.

Visit Richard Rothstein's author page — Richard Rothstein's Blog