Fark.com, one of the most popular blogs on the Net, has been accused of selling out - joining a growing list of new-media outfits willing to bend old-media rules.
According to a veteran new-media publisher, Fark has been selling preferential placement of story links without informing its readers.
Jason Calacanis, publisher of several rival Weblogs Inc. blogs, claims Fark offered him highly placed links to his sites in return for several hundred dollars.
Will this "payola" become a trend? It's certainly not a new issue, with traditional journalism having dealt with the advertsing vs. journalism challenge for decades. A book that I read a month or so ago, Backstory: Inside the Business of News by Ken Auletta discusses how the issue has created serious controversy in the newsroom at the Los Angeles Times.
This is going to be interesting...
-aB
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