@Gerry Crispin – All great points and examples Gerry. I question whether blogs would be as compelling if they did follow a more traditional journalistic approach, and my sense is that more journalists are moving to blogging than the other way around. Thanks for stopping by.

As the impact of “HR” blogs increase as a mainstream source of information, knowledge and opinion, serious journalists among bloggers and other media will see an opportunity to “out” those who haven’t outed themselves. Self-regulation in the media works.

While I respect and, for the most part agree, with Bill Kutik’s premise that we all have conflicts of interest, some are perceived, some minor and some have very real consequences. Certainly it is an issue well beyond blogging, but transparency is a growing issue.

If you advise someone to buy stock you are selling and don’t disclose it, (legality aside) you have a serious problem once hat becomes known.

If you are touting a startup in the Staffing arena and you are on their board of advisors with the potential for turning your options into cash, you need to own up to that. ALL advisory boards should be disclosed.

If you are dissing an ATS and are consulting to a competing ATS, I think it is worth noting.

If you represent yourself as a consultant but the only solutions you’ve offered are coincidentally the ones that offer you a “commission”, accepting money from both sides needs to be outed.

At the moment, few bloggers follow journalistic standards and few journalists attend to our space (despite the fact that 10 to 100 billion dollars is moving around -depending on who you are talking to). That could change.

I liked this point more:

This loose community of journalists, pundits and practitioners has grown in importance in the world of people management in the last five years or so. As a group, HR bloggers are breaking news, stimulating discussion and challenging the stronghold of traditional media organizations that cover human resources, including Workforce Management.

That is what doing this shit is all about. If anyone makes money or builds business, good for them. If they are dirty or unethical, they will eventually get outed, although preferably not by the competition.

In order to maintain full transparency, I revealed my full earning via blogging on Twitter last night. That amount is $300 so far this year.

Some have suggested I must change my twitter nick to @HRMoneyMachine

I am still doing the marketing research and other due diligence on that branding idea.

@Naomi Bloom – Both you and Phil touched on that erroneous position that blogs are dead. To the contrary, blogs are alive and well in this industry. (And in complete transparency to other readers, I did not charge you to advertise your new blog in your comment.)

@Steve Boese – I agree 100% with your point that equal footing requires equal scrutiny. This is why I was quick to call out the “faults” in WF’s own disclosure. However, this all assumes that readers are being duped to some nefarious end. I’d like to believe that consumers of content (traditional or otherwise) have a working brain and know how to use it. Kevin Grossman does a great job of describing the market’s ability to sort this out in his post yesterday (http://tinyurl.com/nj8dnh). Thanks for the comment Steve.

@Laurie Ruettimann – The editorial intentions are a bit questionable and the entire issue is so very tired. Apparently your grandma is way ahead of most Laurie.

@Joan Ginsberg – Perhaps you’re right Joan, but unfortunately I was too distracted by the poor writing, blogger attacks and story line to really get the point of the piece. If the intent was to further the conversation on the issues you’ve raised, it was a miss on all fronts. I really appreciate your thoughts, so thank you.

@Jenn Barnes – First of all, how great was it to see your name here Jenn!! And yes, Lance will likely shrug it off, take the high road and not lose a minute of sleep. Because he’s such an upstanding guy, it’s hard to watch someone take shots at him. Hope you’re well.

@Debbie Brown – Great quote Debbie… “Innovation has a need for speed. So does trust. They go hand in hand.” You’ve said it all succinctly so thanks for stopping by.

@Yvan@DiscussHR – In today’s environment, we have an endless number of choices for content and a short attention span to consume it. And as you’ve stated, we do have a choice, so if we’re not comfortable we are free to choose from hundreds of other sources. Thus, the critical eye should be applied to all media. Great comment.

Innovation has a need for speed. So does trust. They go hand in hand.

I have $5 that says my friend and Portland neighbor Lance will say he doesn’t feel jabbed at at all and welcomes discourse. That is because Lance is an honest and straightforward guy with a heck of a lot of class. WF could take a few lessons from him.

But the article fell down on it’s face because the discussion of the bloggers it mentioned was all over the map and not focused on how or why those bloggers would be in trouble based on the proposed regulations. I don’t see that as malicious, just untalented.

I disagree with Laurie that it’s too late to be discussing those proposed rules. They are not finalized yet, and while the time for public comments has passed, it would benefit *all* HR bloggers to know what the rule says, how it affects your blog, and how you may have to change a few things. Based on my reading of the rule, I don’t think it will have that big of an impact. But just like new employment rules – be prepared.

I think this is a great discussion; thanks to all of you.

I think the article is late to the game on the FTC news. My grandmother was talking about this back in July. I also think it’s a careless attempt to capitalize on the growing popularity of HR bloggers. You can hear the discussion around the Workforce editorial table. “Based on Compete.com data, our traffic is down. Let’s write about bloggers and provoke them. They’ll link back to us and increase our traffic and SEO ranking.”

Barf.

I’m also suspicious of the editorial intentions behind the article. Jessica is right that Workforce doesn’t hate bloggers. They just cast dispersions on those whom they don’t sponsor. Lame, IMHO. Very lame.