PAYING FOR REVIEWS?

posted by James Reel

    The blogosphere is beginning to rumble over allegations that Fanfare, to which I contribute, gives preferential treatment to the recordings of advertisers. Not that it sells positive reviews, but a disc is more likely to get reviewed if the label buys an ad. It’s not my place to comment—I’ll leave that to the editor and publisher, Joel Flegler, if anybody asks him—but I do marvel at the innocence of the American reading public. If you want to restrict your subscriptions to magazines whose editorial content is wholly untouched by advertising, paid junkets and other “special considerations,” I hope you’ll get much pleasure from Consumer Reports, which will be the only item left in your rack.
    That’s not the case for newspapers and alternative weeklies, much as people distrust them. As an editor at the Arizona Daily Star and the Tucson Weekly, I loved it when someone would call me to complain about some article and declare, “I’m going to stop advertising.” My response: “I really don’t care.” The sales directors were probably happy to see me go.