I chanced upon this article entitled “Please Don’t Give Blogging a Bad Name” last night on Facebook. It was posted by a former high school classmate of mine. The article was written by Margaux Salcedo for the Philippine Daily Inquirer and was published last January 22, 2011. Read the full article here.
I immediately read the whole article since I’ve been researching a lot about blogging lately, being a new blogger myself. I was shocked to hear about some PR company trying to extort a business to pay so much money just so they can have bloggers write good reviews for them. For me, the whole point of making a review is to give your honest opinion about a product or business. Being paid for doing it can give the writer/blogger a biased opinion already.
This is such a disappointment and a disgrace to the whole blogging community. I think the most to get affected are newbie bloggers like me, who still have to build a good reputation in the blogging community. I hope that this will not lead people to believe that all bloggers are the same. I, for one, will certainly never sacrifice my integrity for money. I just hope that whoever that PR company is that they will stop what they’re doing for the sake of all bloggers and businesses out there.