In Reply to: A consideration you may have overlooked posted by Sue Kraft on March 15, 2007 at 20:25:21:
I see the issue as relating to good journalistic practice. Whenever a reporter receives something of value from an interested party, that should be disclosed to the reader.I imagine that a company leaves equipment with a reviewer to get what amounts to free advertising. The product will be included in the reviewer's equipment list and may be mentioned in the article itself as a comparison or benchmark -- if the company is lucky, it will be described as better than the equipment under test.
I understand there are good reasons for the reviewer to accept this "gift" of equipment -- it allows him or her to compare the equipment under review to others like it, and the reader benefits from that. But I believe it to be just good journalism to let the reader know that some of the equipment mentioned in the review was made available by a party with a financial interest in the outcome.
I want to emphasize that this is not a suggestion that you or anyone else would not review fairly -- I'm speaking about good editorial practice in the abstract.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Follow Ups
- Re: A consideration you may have overlooked - Maric 15:21:22 03/18/07 (0)