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A few notes on the FTC's new blogging regulations

We have a lot of fun here at CMG, but we’re also very serious about our position within the blogosphere and are mostly responsible journalists, as it applies. So it’s only right that we address the Federal Trade Commission’s recently issued new guides for truth in blogging. These guides ask that websites, advertisers, and publicists work to disclose the nature of their relationships, so that consumers can make more educated choices based on the recommendations of various web writers. The idea is that you, reader, can’t trust us, the online writers, when we say that the new Raekwon CD is shit-hot fire because we may’ve gotten it for free.

In that instance, you would be wrong: we downloaded that shit right off the internet like you did. Rap labels are pricks on promos, and anyway, we’ll cop the vinyl later. But it’s true that we do get things for free. Disclosure: CMG is on good terms with a number of labels and PR reps who get us promo discs or downloads in advance of the album’s release date so we’ve got time to digest the record and get a review out. Of course, we do not even come close to reviewing all of the things submitted to us, but (disclosure) neither do we send anything back, unless there was some sort of prior arrangement, which has never occurred. But that would be cute. In short, the shit becomes ours. We often put it on shelves, since we also realize that selling albums obtained for promotional reasons for beer money is bad for the artist and label. We discourage that, editorially. Of course, given the lessening interest in physical formats in today’s day and age which consequently has dropped the value of used CDs, even if we did sell every promo that we got this year we might only be able to buy one whole keg. Which isn’t going to go very far at a CMG party. In short, we can pretty much guarantee that if you purchase an album based on our recommendation and decide we were wrong? That’s a taste thing, and not a deliberate lie on our part thanks to a 6-digit check from a record label who has wrongly assumed that what we have to say about an album will totally make or break its sales figures in the face of every other internet review site, flagging sales figures for physical copies, illegal downloading, and whether you already like the band or not.

All of which essentially makes us: a review site, same as like one of those glossy magazines or newspapers that also doesn’t make money and also reviews shit. Our policies are pretty standard fare: you can contact us, send us stuff, and that’s cool, but there’s no guarantee we’ll review it or give it a good review if we do review it. The difference here is that the FTC hasn’t made these print publications pull down their pants for editorial inspection in the manner they have online editorial entities, a fact for which the FTC has been summarily gored by sites of pretty much every stripe, including by very real places with more readers than ours. One exec at the FTC also made the claim that manufacturers/etc expect good reviews from bloggers, which shows about where the FTC’s head is at as a whole on the whole “blogging” thing. It’s all payola or hired thugs to get good reviews from people in their pajamas. From our pajamas, we add our meager voice to the choir of sites singing in glorious million-part harmony “FUCK YOU!” to the FTC, though it won’t really mean much, given that these guides don’t even really apply because both our editor-in-chief and managing editor are Canadian.

Anyway, there it is: CMG’s disclosure statement to appease the FTC. Hope our editorial genitals seemed fit enough, you shithive.

The Staff | 10/23/2009 |                

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