Bloggers: FTC has new guidelines for endorsements

Are bloggers subject to the same conflict of interest standards as journalists? Is disclosure enough or should bloggers not take any sort of product in exchange for reviews. Are bloggers journalists?

The FTC is attempting to tackle some of these questions in their new Final Guides governing endorsements, testimonials.

The Guides, which were last updated in 1980, spell out how advertisers need to act to disclose connections between the company and people endorsing the product.

It will be the “material connections” segment of the new guidelines that will create most uproar among consumers who regularly endorse products.

The new guidelines include expamples of:

' "material connections" (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers.'

What do you think? No surprises here for business journalists, right?

SABEW to receive $50,000 grant

The Society of American Business Editors and Writers has reached its goal of raising $50,000 to have it matched by a grant from the Challenge Fund for Journalism’s consortium of four national foundations (the Ford Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the McCormick Foundation and the Ethics & Excellence in Journalism Foundation).
SABEW President Greg McCune said he expects the total drive to total over $60,000 when all donations are counted.
Approximately 317 people contributed to the fundraiser. Ken Baldwin and Paul Steiger were praised by the McCune for their especially generous donations.
The society plans to use the $100,000 to revitalize its technology, allowing it to offer more training and services to members as well as react more quickly to changes in the journalism industry. From the SABEW announcement:

“Our success comes in the wake of last fall’s stock market collapse and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, which combined to usher in one of the toughest fund-raising climates in memory,” McCune said.

Read the announcement here.

IMAGE CREDIT: SABEW Web site: http://sabew.com/news/home.htm