There are scandals, and then there are scandals (not to be confused with what passes for celebrity scandals).
Microsoft handed out a whole bunch of really nice laptops to a whole bunch of bloggers. Take that, anti-blogger triumphalists. Needless to say, hilarity ensued as words like “bribe” and “sellout” and “unethical” and “PR disaster” were thrown about.
My take – if you expect rigorous standards, go to Consumer Reports. Otherwise, caveat emptor applies, as always — even for freebies.
What were people thinking: Gee, I really trusted blogger x when I didn’t know anything about him/her, but now that I know they are another human with all the same frailties as me, I can’t fully trust them to deliver those Olympian pronouncements to live my life by anymore. I mean, what’s next, companies creating fake blogs?
Full disclosure — I’m still waiting to make my unethical sell out. And I still don’t have a big plasma HDTV. (And yes, I have read Bug Jack Barron: The saddest day of your life isn’t when you decide to sell out. The saddest day of your life is when you decide to sell out and nobody wants to buy.
