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September 22, 2005
One Blog Gets Upfront About Pitches
By Charlie Kondek
Now here's something I appreciate. I blogged previously about pitching to bloggers, throwing my support behind the idea of a blog somehow signaling whether it wants to receive pitches from PR folk or not. Check out this site. Food blog Accidental Hedonist has a link right on its homepage to a set of guidelines for pitches, stating explicitly what is welcome and what is not.
"If you are a PR company who wishes to have their products reviewed, please read our guidelines prior to sending an e-mail message," the site instructs. Within the guidelines, the Hedonist also spells out what PR firms should and should not expect in exchange for their free stuff:
"If you send me a product to be approved, you will agree to the following.
· You agree that I do NOT have to post about your product unless I decide to. Tara and I make the decisions on this site, and we will not have outside companies dictate what I can and cannot post.
· You agree that I do NOT have to give a positive review of your product.
· You agree that I do NOT have to paint your product in a positive light.
· You agree that if a product is sent to me, it does not require any action on my part, whatsoever.
· I reserve the right to alert my readers which products have been sent to me in order for them to decide if my review is legitimate or not."
The guideline does not, however, pledge to disclose all freebies and/or discounts to readers, a gray area that has stimulated some debate on this blog.
But the Hedonist’s guidelines are certainly a step toward clarity in the ongoing PR-ization of news blogs.
Posted by staff at September 22, 2005 07:56 AM
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Comments
AH certainly has the right approach.
There's a survey that Edelman and Technorati are conducting asking questions on how bloggers should be approached to do product reviews etc. I got an email from Technorati, in exchange for participation a copy of the white paper will be sent.
www.bloggerstudy.com/blogstudy_q.asp
Posted by: Tery Spataro at September 29, 2005 12:59 PM
Thanks, Tery!
Posted by: Charlie at September 30, 2005 10:09 AM
