Never Trust a Blogger

Sometimes I daydream about the moment when Apple will realize that it should reach a product placement deal with a prominent political blogger such as myself and give me a bunch of cool free stuff in exchange for me writing about it. But now along comes Gilbert Arenas, apparently ruining things, by making companies think you can't trust a blogger with an endorsement deal:

Adidas executives learned that day what an increasing number of marketers have found -- that pitchmen armed with a blog can be tricky. Blog posts are typically candid and breezy, not the kind of safe, stock answers that athletes are often advised to give in postgame interviews, says David Carter, executive director of the USC Sports Business Institute in Los Angeles.

My commitment to any potential sponsors is that in exchange for free stuff of a sufficiently high quality I will eschew both candor and breeziness. I, after all, am a professional blogger, not some basketball player moonlighting.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2007/10/never-trust-a-blogger/46599/