‘Loot bag bloggers’

The Good Life with Eli F.J. Tajanlangit

Isn’t this sad? After a string of hits, when they impacted and influenced events in the world, most recently the case of champion cyclist Lance Armstrong, bloggers are now grappling with questions about their integrity.

Is corruption in the media creeping online? asked Rappler.com, the most respectable Philippine online newspaper now, in a recent article, and then proceeded to detail how bloggers have imbibed – in some cases, even improved – on the bad habits that have been plaguing our traditional media for a long time now.

The Rappler article specifically singled out the so-called “mom bloggers”, the stay-at-home mothers who maintain blogs, who are reportedly pursuing their jobs for the material things they could get, such as loot bags and gift checks. As happens in the traditional media landscape, companies usually give out loot bags or GCs, or sometimes the so-called TF or talent fees, in exchange for the attendance of media people in an event or press conference.

It seems like now, the same practice has covered bloggers and has already gotten to the point when some of them refuse to attend an event unless they are assured of loot bags or GCs worth at least P1,000.

Rappler called them the “loot bag bloggers” to emphasize how much of a motivation the loot bag is for them. Which brings us to the heart of the matter here: Is this practice wrong and immoral, as we believe it is in the traditional media? Do bloggers have any responsibility to be fair and independent the way we demand traditional media to have?

It is easy to condemn bloggers who demand to be paid in whatever form for the things they write. After all, isn’t it embarrassing for people to check what the contents are of loot bags or how much GCs they will get if they decide to join a media event? I can almost hear bloggers mouthing the same lines traditional mediamen use when they justify accepting, and even expecting, loot bags and GCs: we also have payables in our work. When bloggers go to events, they also have to dress up and spend for transportation, and considering most of them are not paid to do their blogs – the traditional media people say they’re underpaid – isn’t it just fair for them to get something for their efforts?

I think the questions will continue to hang over us and the answers, as in the case of traditional media, will continue to evolve as the complexion of media continues to change. Perhaps, it won’t be as low as being paid loot bags and GCs, but for as long as the media maintains its powers and influence, it will continue to attract tempting offers to go this way or that, to write this or discuss that.

Public relations people started “corrupting” blogs only when it has been proven they can also serve a purpose in the general scheme of information campaigns. Already, even respectable newspapers here and abroad occasionally go into partnerships with their own news sources – a big no no in the past, as recently as 15 years ago but is now acceptable, considering the media’s need for resources in pursuing its goals.

Bloggers, on the hand, are personal, and therefore, subjective media. They write what they want to write, bound only by their own sense of propriety and recently, by the cybercrime law. They operate under no code of ethics, except perhaps by the general norms of ethical behavior.

They can be powerful mediamen, given the latitude they have in carrying out their work. But as is being feared now, they can also be very dangerous and can, in fact, be inimical to the public good.*

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