John made note of this new WAPO contest last week. Today, having received the email all subscribers get, reminding me that I could be America’s Next Pundit , I sighed. I asked why, to no one in particular, as I was alone in a Panera Bread in Chevy Chase, sucking up free wireless while waiting for a friend. I suspected the gentleman sitting at the next table in his Brooks Brothers suit, looking sheepishly from side to side as he typed, was answering WAPO’s plea. I hope for his sake he was applying for a job at some conservative think tank.

We need more pundits? WAPO is replete with them. Are they not willing to pay real journalist any longer, or is it that Americans don’t want real news? Don’t know what real news is? Is this a desperate attempt to get readers? And more than this, would anyone with an opinion of worth — backed with experience and working knowledge of any given subject — want to give that opinion for $200 per column? I don’t think so.

“Blogger Payola” news. (source, FTC Votes to End “Blogger Payola). I just love that term don’t you?

Stemming from the unintentional shoddy ethics of what some call “Mommy Bloggers” who pretend to use and love products in order to receive free products, or for a paycheck, there are some new rules being instituted in December by the one and only FTC. The full pdf offered at the CJR site is available here. Some bloggers complained they couldn’t trust their long time reads any longer. So now it’s about transparency.

I resign myself to transparency, and promise that when I tell you to read a post by Blogger A or Blogger B it’s because the post is worthy and the blogger is prime. It will never be because they pay me. How do I know this? Because I’ve asked them to pay me. They said no.

Not a nerve pluck, but a recommendation. From the Washington Post, believe it or not. An Op-Ed by Steven F. Hayward, a bit of an expert in conservatism, and not one of my favorite people, but still a worthy read. He asks, Is Conservatism Brain-Dead?

A worthwhile read, even if you already know the answer, and most of you do of course, know the answer.

I want to pass on good thoughts to someone I’ve never met. I’ve read about him often enough over the last 4 years, at Pia Savages Courting Destiny. She calls him Rafe, though I know not his real name. He is part of her life, and part of her writing, and for that I thank him. Consequently I have a bit of an attachment to his character, if not the real life entity.

Rafe suffered a ruptured cerebral aneurysm while lifting a treadmill and has undergone surgical correction, evacuation of the blood, and repair of the aneurysm. He is thus far doing well, but it is touch and go. My vibes are out there, so feel free to send your vibes along to Rafe. We are all characters in someone’s story, and we may all need someone’s thoughts some day.

peace

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Up to a couple of hundred thousand blogs are started every day, so suing bloggers, especially if they own homes and have large bank accounts, big gossipy mouths, and not an ounce of common sense, could be quite lucrative. You can goggle Internet Defamation and see it’s a growing niche, the blogger version of ambulance chasers. There are also internet sites selling bloggers insurance, capitalizing on the fear of being sued niche. Media Bloggers is one to those. Thanks to our advancing technology we have a whole new niche, ripe for exploitation, and it involves lawyers and insurance. Go figure. If common sense would only prevail we’d have none of this, but somewhere along the line someone decided that freedom of speech meant something other that what it really means, and others have spent years making money from the confusion. It’s only going to get worse.

When people start yammering all over the internet they might want to delay reading about how to blog, how to get readers, how to get comments, how to get links and fame, and how make money. Instead, after reading a few simple books on basic writing, go directly to What is defamation, yes Virginia you can in some cases be sued for your opinion.

One thing I did find at Media Bloggers was a link to this mini course, Online Media Law, a joint project of “Media Bloggers Association; Citizen Media Law Project, which is jointly affiliated with Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Center for Citizen Media; City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism and Baruch College; and Media/Professional Insurance”, at News University. You have to sign up for News University, but it only takes two seconds, and after doing so you can enroll in the course at the bottom of the page. You can read through the course quickly. You can also take an assessment quiz before or after reading through it.

The assessment is common sense, if you don’t do well it would benefit you to read the course. I got 1 wrong. Erring on the side of caution, I presumed someone could be sued for calling someone a jerk. Hypothesizing the “what if the name caller had a PhD in jerks”, not the honorable degree in jerks that most of us think we have, but a real one, yeah lets just assume for a minute that there is such a thing. What if the Doctor of Jerks had a personal website, but his about page states his credentials and links to his authoritative research on jerks. Say he calls his neighbor a jerk, or calls someone a jerk in the comments of another blog. Is he more liable because of his expertise, even if he was just ranting in a non professional way on his or someone else’s personal blog?

Gets kind of murky there for me….

Some links:

Top Ten Rules For Limiting Legal Risks
Citizens Media Law Project
Center for Citizens Media
Teaching Copyright

peace

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I’m posting this because it is surely the way of things to come. Not to disregard the fact that the money could end up at an extremely inefficient non-profit, and the posts could certainly be more self serving than not, this is an interesting concept, one that we have already seen and will be sure to see more of as time goes on. Blogging for money for something you care about is certainly a heck of a lot easier than blogging for no other reason than to be linked to a thousands other bloggers. At least theoretically.

This is how Zemanta’s works. You post the following in your cause post, along with a little graphic. The non-profits that have the most posts, the top 5 I believe, receive the money.

This blog post is part of Zemanta’s “Blogging For a Cause” campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.

How Your Voice Can Make a Difference

1. Blog about your favorite non-profit and why their work makes a difference.
2. Paste this text and link to the end of your post. Without this text and link, we will be unable to track and credit your charitable cause as part of this campaign:

This blog post is part of Zemanta’s “Blogging For a Cause” campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.

Thought I’d put it out there.

A comment off FYI production.

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