I think we all can agree that political campaigns hardly bring out the best in people. Quite often they bring out the worst. Over the last few days some readers may have followed the story where an anonymous blogger from the Red County blogs, similar center right blogs to our own dear SD Rostra, was booted off the blogroll for accepting money to blog for Gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner, or perhaps against candidate Meg Whitman.
I find myself torn by the ethical dilemma of accepting money to blog for or against a candidate. Certainly, there is the idea of free speech, particularly in this kind of forum. But the idea of getting paid makes me think less of free speech, and more of paid advertising without disclosure. What I’ve noticed reading the Flashreport, another center right statewide blog, is that the bloggers, many of whom are paid professionals, usually note when they are pimping for a paid client. Of course, Red County/Rostra and Flashreport are fundamentally different, in that we allow anonymous bloggers, and Flashreport does not. At the end of the day I think it would be appropriate, even if anonymous, to indicate you are being paid for blogging if you are being paid to blog, as opposed to simply using your free speech rights to make a point that you would have been whether or not you were being paid.
But really though this discussion of new media ethics was not the point of my column. The point of my column concerned the accusation by the campaign that Matt Cunningham, founder of Red County and presumably the person who had a role of sacking the anonymous Poizner blogger, had in turn committed various ethical breaches vis-a-vis candidate Steve Poizner. I invite you to review the exchange in the Flashreport this morning. It simply does not reflect well on the Poizner campaign. In the blog-0-sphere Mr. Cunningham, formerly “Jubal” has a stellar reputation for honesty, and for not pulling punches. I read nothing which changes my mind about him.