Regarding Astroturf
In the comments of another post, a reader calling himself Reactor made the following comment:
If there is one thing I learned on “the Street,” it’s this: People work for who pays them.”
Granted, Reactor and I may have had completely different experiences, but I would completely disagree with that implications of that statement. I shared my feelings with him there, but the comment warrants further discussion, so I thought I would start a new thread.
My experience in nearly 20 years of politics is that money tends to follow opinion, not the other way around.
My posts here at Digital Society and elsewhere are my opinion and mine alone. Would I take money from Verizon or AT&T if they felt the desire to pay me? Sure. But it wouldn’t at all change what I am saying, and they would likely be doing so because of what I was saying, not in spite of it.
I have rarely ever seen a group hire someone to be a spokesperson (disclosed or not) because that person held a contrary position or view.
I have been crystal clear that am a vocal supporter of free markets, and think the government tends to screw up 99% of what it touches. That belief system tends to align with business a lot of the time. If businesses want to support the efforts of someone that tends to agree with them, I see no shame in that. It would not, in my case, give them editorial input into my writing.
Now, if you want to question my ideology, and challenge it on the merits, that’s fine. I have a lot of friends on the left and we have a great many arguments along that line. I am more than prepared to defend my belief system.
However, trying to discredit someone as a “shill” or “astroturf” is simply an argument of weak intellect. It’s even worse when, as Free Press did, you then get caught engaging in the same behavior. (It’s actually even worse in their case because they falsified the signatures.)
It has been my experience that people are unlikely to shill for someone they disagree with philosophically just because of a check. I’ve seen people try, and they usually end up with horrible reputations and a different line of work.
I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, and Reactor may have seen more of it than I have. My experience leads me to believe those cases are exceptionally rare.
My advice FWIW:
Take the money from the companies that fund Digital Society / Arts + Labs and fully disclose potential conflicts of interest when you write about issues where your income providers have a stake in outcomes.
It’s a standard practice. You deserve to be paid for your efforts (I still suspect that you are via other sources. see: CRAFT Media Digital) … and it’s not like AT&T and Verizon are going broke.
AT&T recorded a gross profit margin of more than 50% during the years (2007 and 2008) that it had to abide by a FCC-mandated Net Neutrality standard. We’re talking about gross profits in the tens of billions, Net Neutrality notwithstanding
Surely they can shake loose some of that spare change for you.
A) I have fully disclosed that I work for CRAFT and also disclosed that we do no work for AT&T, Verizon, or cable companies. Like I said, I’d be happy to, but we don’t. My bio fully discloses my ties, and you know this because you have linked to it while saying I don’t disclose.
B) Digital Society’s about page fully discloses that it is partially funded by Arts & Labs. Arts & Labs fully discloses that it is funded by companies that take positions on both sides of the net neutrality debate (AT&T is against, Microsoft is for).
C) Looking at gross profits is highly misleading in a capital intensive business. As an example, Comcast may gross 11 billion dollars, but by the time you pay maintenance, programming costs, blah blah blah, they end up netting very little.
So saying a company with massive overhead should be judged on gross profit is ridiculous. That’s like saying the only cost for your ability to drive is the cost of the car. It ignores gas, insurance, maintenance, etc. Those drive your total cost of ownership way up.
Well he is not lying, you are a shill. If you don’t like being called a shill don’t be a be employed as a shill.
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