Quote:
Originally Posted by griffon512
Targeting him as a potential bad guy is off base and feels like a misguided extension of a legitimate huge problem that needs to be addressed in the hobby.
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Except that the entire publishing world feels very differently from you. From an article on payola:
"Jason Feifer, editor in chief of Entrepreneur, said in an email, 'I often tell entrepreneurs that if they want to get the ear of an editor, there’s no better way than to do this: Find someone who’s selling coverage on a reputable site, and rat them out. I encourage people to do this right now—my inbox is always open, as our my colleagues'. We have a zero-tolerance policy for this kind of thing, our writer’s guidelines strictly prohibit it, and we take swift action. In the past, when alerted to people selling access on our site, I’ve even gone the extra step of alerting editors at other publications where that person writes, so that these bad actors have nowhere else to go. We value our readers’ trust above all, and will always work to ensure that they’re getting unbiased information from people who have their best interests in mind.'”
Plus it leads to the exact scenario we find ourselves in. Positive coverage when things are going well and then protectionism or silence (and let's not forget his only response here on Net54 was to defend PWCC). Now any reader of Forbes who hears about this might think "It can't be that big of a deal, he didn't cover it." There are reasons it is unethical AND illegal. Is it as big of a problem as the bad actors? Probably not, but it makes it much easier for them to exist. You also have a couple of choices of what to believe in this case. He didn't know what PWCC was doing behind the scenes when he hypothetically accepted the payola and now he's between a rock and a hard place, or he did know and now he's praying it all just goes away.
Now there's only conjecture and a suspicious pattern of events, circumstantial evidence at best, so I'm not saying he's guilty of anything. But I am entitled to wonder, if you have nothing to hide, why, as a journalist, do you go radio silent on one of the biggest stories in the hobby? Based on his quote do you think the editor of Entrepreneur would like to know about the situation?