Today I had to laugh when I saw the following press release from Wired Magazine: “WIRED Magazine Announces Nominees for Sixth Annual Wired Rave Awards“. The most cursory investigation reveals evidence of Wired’s continued conflicts of interest passed off as journalistic appreciation, this time in the way it promotes its business / advertising partners for their apparently meaningless Rave awards.
I’d love a little info on the nomination process as at least two of the five nominated blogs, Kevin Sites Blog and Wonkette (owned by Gawker Media Corp.), have direct business relationships to Wired Media. It should be no surprise that nominees for the Rave Awards are selected and judged by the editors of Wired Magazine. If you continue down the list of nominees you might discover similar relationships, but these were the most obvious.
I detailed this sort of cross-promotion previously. In this case, it is glaring. For example, Wired Media’s resident journalist-bloggeur Xeni Jardin is credited on Kevin Sites Blog as the site producer and creator. Xeni Jardin also lists Kevin Sites Blog on her personal website as one of her projects, yet this somehow does not disqualify the site from competing for “Rave” awards promoted by her employer in the Blogger category.
Furthermore, the aforementioned Wonkette is wholly owned by Nick Denton’s corporate alter-ego, Gawker Media Corp., and staffed by paid blogger Ana Marie Cox. The fact that Ms. Cox is a paid blogging employee should be disqualifying enough, but let’s not forget that Wonkette’s parent company and Wired Media have an open business partnership involving another of Gawker Media’s hot “blogging” properties, Gizmodo. On Gizmodo’s front page they promote Wired’s Gadget Lab newsletter and have done so for many months. An exchange of lucrative advertising space and who knows what else. Gizmodo’s promotion of Gadget Lab almost certainly has more to do with promoting Wired’s own magazine subscriptions (why else would you join an email newsletter?) and advertisers than it has to do with an appreciation of gadgets.
This is exactly the sort of thing most people hate about the “blogging” world. The pretense is that these individuals craft an image of a reality that does not exist and they have that power because of their credibility as journalists and media experts. These nominated blogs and individuals are important because Wired and its editors say they are. But what if the editors / judges are friends or business partners with their subjects? Where is the line between journalistic appreciation and conflict of interest? Or, the line between blogging and advertising-driven hackery? At the very least, if you have a direct relationship with the organization in charge of the nomination and award process you should be disqualified.