Today's New York Times had a long article in the editorial section regarding the purchase of blog inputs on behalf of political candidates. Some of the accused perps are folks who blog on KOS. The motivation for the article was to be able to assert that politics in the netroots era hasn't changed from the old days when you bought anything you could to promote your candidate. The question for Kossacks is, have the netroots changed anything or is it business as usual? A related question is what are the ethical issues involved?
Ethical issues abound in what the NYT article implies:
Should bloggers on Kos and elsewhere accept payment for serving as, pardon the expression, concealed shills for candidates running for office?
Should they at least reveal the fact that they are not simply expressing their own opinions but actually providing a service for a client? Would simple disclaimers solve the ethical dilemma?
Does our lack of knowledge of such candidate-centered activities harm Kos by diminishing our confidence in the integrity of discourse here?
These are troubling questions that go to the heart of the future of this site. I, for one,
have valued what Markos has done. I would hate to see it lost in the miasma of politics as usual.