editorial independence | complicated simplicity

Editorial Independence: What’s wrong now?

Written December 21, 2007 in Personal, Technology

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With the advent of free information flowing on the WWW, the reliability of this information is often taken for granted. My lecturers have always reminded us about the flaws of the freedom of speech, either in a science context or in a humanities context, simply because when there is a freedom of speech, we have to consider a matter of bias and context.

Why am I writing this now? Simply because of several incidents which happened and my experiences with advertising. One of incidents happened with Gamespot where a games editor was alledgedly sacked for giving a poor review against a game which had bought a lot of advertising on Gamespot. (read link).

This one’s got the online games community buzzing like an angry wasp trapped in a glass jar of uncertainty and allegation. Gamespot games editor Jeff Gerstmann has been sacked from his role on the news site and ’sources’ on Kotaku and elsewhere have asserted that the writer was given the boot for scoring Kane & Lynch a disappointing 6/10. There are allegations that Eidos, currently bedecking the Gamespot site with lashings of Kane & Lynch advertising, took umbrage at the review and threatened to pull its ads.

Many people assume whatever reviews they read on reputable sites is always true. Well, most of us do, and for most of the time, it is. But we should never take for granted that a website’s editorial and revenue are independent. We trust websites to give honest reviews about products that we care about. But ‘honest’ in this case may very well be linked to the individual/company’s purse strings. I have recently taken care to remind myself when I am reading reviews to note the editorial independence, the disclosures and the types of ad-services which a website uses. As a guide, I give more credit to website that use 3rd parties as advertising intermediates as compared to inhouse advertising teams or direct plugs.

Next, we have to consider the context of reviews we are interested in. Very often, people (editors very often included) get caught up in flamewars which would skew the editorials. Very popular are the "Windows vs OS X", or "MS Office vs OpenOffice" or "Clinton vs Obama". It is often important to review the inherent bias and stand of the editor in question. They may (or may not) do it on purpose, but no one in this world is perfectly unpartisan. I make it a point to put my stand (or possible bias) on a certain position at the start or end of articles which may possibly devolve into flame wars so everyone know where I’m coming from and may choose to take my review with a pinch of salt. It should be the responsibilty of the editor to make such possible conflicts of interest or bias clear to the reader.

Some people may say I’m not practising what I preach with the way I approach some of my advertising. I must make it clear that I mostly get paid for referrals and not for reviews. If I have to review products, I will (and have always) made it very clear in the posts and I make a truthful review. Normally I try to avoid take up such assignments. I mark all my advertorials clearly to distingush them from articles. I believe in responsible advertising, not blantant advertising. To me, advertising is a side-line, writing content is what I enjoy. Therefore, if you ever see a site which is blantantly advertising, my advice is not to give them too much credit. You never know what they will say to maximise revenue.

So now for the thought-provoking question,

How much trust should you put in the websites you visit so often for information?

Tags: Personal