What I find is that most often, when they actually FIND some nugget, some morsel, that might otherwise by useful. In and of itself, unfiltered, and UN-SPUN, they deflate more rapidly than a pricked ballon. They cower at the possibility that someone might actually LOOK PAST their words. And look for themselves at the circumstance that they’re oh-so-galantly trying to purvey. Again, and again, you see it.

It’s not just from media of any political persuasion. It’s a pretty blanketed malady that I believe, blogs in part, address. It puts the person in focus to “cut through the cruft” of spun news. Sometimes, some blogs will completely fall for the cream puff frosting, sometimes they’ll cut right down to the crust, and ask, “What in the hell is in this thing ?”. Which is really all anyone ever REALLY wants a journalist to ever report.

Get better, and take care of yourself, Jeff.

It just alerts those of us who aren’t connected into the money train to apply an appropriate discount to the words. That discount may vary from person to person based on whether we know the people in question and if so, how well.

Disclaimer: im the Fonero Leader for Argentina and have NO payment NOR financial reward, just one router for me to try

Britt Blaser wrote this.

That’s not what the article implied. Rather, you have Google and Skype and two VC firms investing $21 million in a company. There’s no good reason for advisory board members to avoid noting that they may get a financial winfall, but may not. The way to avoid appearing biased is to disclose–which you do, so I don’t know why you’re carrying water on this one.

I love David Isenberg to pieces, and the fact that he and other bloggers (outside of two I know) didn’t mention there might be a financial connection is because they aren’t thinking about the money. I argue that bloggers need to think about the money, because when you’re involved in industry disruptive technologies, it’s better to expose biases rather than have them exposed.

Just look at the folks who opposed municipal networks–most of them are being paid directly or indirectly from the incumbent monopolies. It would be in the public interest to know about the ones that won’t disclose any funding sources and yet speak the loudest on the topic. If they get not a cent, that would be just as useful to know as whether 90% of their budget is paid by a telco giant.

There’s no good reason to not to write, “I am on an advisory board and may be compensated for my opinions.” It’s oversight now, but the issue deserves to be raised.

If it were people you didn’t know and didn’t trust, I don’t expect you’d be saying the same thing. These are people I mostly know and those I know I completely trust–and I’m still raising a red flag.