Mommy bloggers apparently get lots of free stuff and write about it. Only cool people get swag. Years ago, Cosmopolitan magazine was cool. When I worked there, advertisers would send free vibrating panties in the hopes we’d write about them. When mommy bloggers are getting free vibrating bouncy chairs and goodness knows what else, then they know for certain that they have arrived.
The problem is that the Federal Trade Commission might step in soon. The F.T.C. may require online media to comply with disclosure rules under truth-in-advertising. To oversimplify, this means that you have to call swag swag and label sponsored posts.
These are the rules that all of us old-school journalists try hard to follow no matter where our writing gets published from The New York Times to Cosmo to, well, Barista Kids.
Seriously, doesn’t everyone know these ethics already? I guess Indiana University School of Journalism was good for something. Mommy bloggers everywhere maybe need to step up–it’s not that hard to call swag swag.
In the meantime, I’ll still read their sites. Some of my favorites are, Classymommy, MotherProof and Geek Girlfriends.