(Cross-posted at Living in the O.)
Yesterday, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article about political candidates courting bloggers. Though the article was a bit shallow, I was glad to see the Chronicle recognizing the influence of bloggers on politics, and even happier to see my friend Sean from BearFlagBlue interviewed for the article.
The article opens with this story:
Dennis Herrera is running for re-election as San Francisco's city attorney and loudly rumored to be eyeing the mayor's office down the road. So a few weeks ago, he invited about a dozen influential folks to a local restaurant for drinks (on his campaign's tab) and some face time. Those folks were local bloggers.
At first, I thought, great, this is really smart on Dennis Herrera's behalf. He must have some savvy staffers. But then I thought about the fact that bloggers were accepting drinks from a candidate they hadn't endorsed. I'm not suggesting that these bloggers would be influenced by a few drinks and would be more likely to endorse because of this, but I'm not sure that this kind of behavior fits into my own blogger code of ethics.
The more I thought about it, and talked to others about it, the stickier the issue became. I racked my brain and realized that though I've never accepted a drink (or anything else) from a political candidate, I'd certainly allowed elected officials to buy me drinks without thinking twice. I do write about some of these officials, and of course most of them are likely to run for re-election or another office in the future.
There's also the issue that bloggers, unlike journalists, usually don't get paid for our work. And for all of the bloggers I know, time is a very precious thing. So then maybe that makes it ok to accept a drink from a political candidate who'd like to meet with us – after all, they are requesting our time and often our advice.
On Friday, Brittney Gilbert addressed a similar issue – the Federal Trade Commission passed new rules that allow the FTC to sue bloggers who make false claims about a product that the bloggers received from companies for free. It's clear to me that products and political candidates are a different, but these new regulations raise interesting questions about a blogger's responsibility to be truthful and not swayed by free products or free drinks.
I have no final answer here. I'm pretty sure that I will continue to not accept free drinks from political candidates, but I'm not sure where the ethical line ultimately falls. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this tricky issue.
Many of us had a very similar discussion three years ago when Mark Warner, now Senator from Virginia, sponsored a big bash at the top of the Stratosphere hotel in Las Vegas during the inaugural Yearly Kos. The drinks were free, and Warner was at the time exploring a presidential campaign.
Some bloggers felt it was wrong to accept his free drinks, as that would compromise their independence, violate ethics, or would somehow induce them to back Warner’s presidential bid.
Most other bloggers felt that it was highly unlikely that anyone would actually become Warner supporters, or be unwilling to write truthfully and critically of his campaign, merely because they had a few free drinks in the Stratosphere. Which is how it turned out – the event apparently was fun, but Warner got hardly any favorable treatment from bloggers because of it.
You’ll see a similar dynamic at the CDP convention, where organizations sponsor “hospitality suites” replete with free drinks on the Saturday night of the convention weekend. Folks drink up – I know I did last year! – but it doesn’t translate into favorable blog coverage for those organizations.
I’ll have to paraphrase the great Jesse Unruh here – if bloggers can’t accept a drink from a politician and then write truthfully about them afterward, they don’t belong here!
I think it all depends on the role that you see yourself in.
If one is trying to present themselves as a neutral observer of facts than I would say accepting gifts…even drinks…would be a definite no-no.
I might also feel the same way if I worked for some person or some larger organization.
As an independent blogger/activist though, I don’t really have much problem with it.
At the end of the day, I’m a partisan progressive activist that happens to be pretty opinionated and doesn’t mind sharing those opinions on the blogs. I don’t see myself as needing to stay very objective, so I don’t have a problem taking a drink from anybody, even if it is going to sway my opinion of that person; Although it likely wouldn’t.
I could see where some readers may take issue with my accepting a drink from a politician that I might be covering, but I think that is something that is really between a writer and his or her readers.
In full disclosure though:
I once accepted a plain old-fashioned doughnut and a cup of coffee from Congressional Candidate Adriel Hampton
and…
at an open house for Assm. Joan Buchanan I had not 1, but 2 glasses of lemonade as well as a few brownie bites. I also walked off with a Joan Buchanan pencil and a book about the California Legislature.
Take from that what you will.
In general, I give amateur bloggers pretty wide berth on accepting refreshments on things like this. But this a good post because I think we need to be vigilant about issues like this.
The reason we think folks in certain professions should refrain from accepting gifts is because those kind of exchanges have the potential to create real conflicts of interest, or the appearance thereof. The need to avoid real conflicts of interests stems from myriad reasons, but I think the need to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interests (even where none may exist) almost always stems from a basic need to preserve credibility.
Now blogs are just tools and so “bloggers” is just a class of people who use a certain type of tool. Consequently, I think the context (who is doing the blogging, who is being blogged about and who’s the audience the blogger is writing for) is hugely important in looking at these things.
Also, whatever issues of credibility are raised by a blogger materially benefiting from a candidate they write about, much of the damage can be mitigated through proper disclosure.
You focused on the drinks being provided but to me the fact that a select group of bloggers were hand-picked and given an audience with a candidate has the potential to skew the coverage of that candidate a lot more than the drinks the bloggers accepted. After all, access is at least as valuable a commodity (whether it’s understood as such or not by the blogger) as a drink.
Nil desperandus carborundum or “don’t let the bastards grind you down.”
I would imagine most candidates simply want to meet with you to introduce themselves and have you ask direct questions so that when you later blog about them, the stuff you’re writing is as factual as possible and that you know more about the candidate than simply the stats.
Personally, I’m working on a congressional campaign and am trying to set up meetings between major bloggers and my candidate. I’m doing this not because I want to “buy their love” but instead because I know they’re probably going to be discussing the race anyway so I’d like them to have actually met my candidate and personally discussed his positions on specific issues before they begin blogging about him.
I want to give the bloggers the opportunity to ask whatever they want of him. This will allow them to decide for themselves if he’s worthy of their attention.
I actually discussed this exact topic with my candidate telling him we should be careful not to meet any blogger at a restaurant or a bar so that we in no way appear to be trying to purchase future favors.
So I hope the bloggers we meet with in Sacramento later this month don’t find us “cheap” (which was a concern) but rather an ethical campaign (which is our intention).