As much as public relations officers try to get bloggers to say something positive about the products and services they are promoting, I suspect many of them as themselves how to get bloggers to shut up, especially about negative aspects of the products and services they promote.

It makes me think of the old quip in politics: How do you get a reporters attention? Tell him it is off the record. The more strenuously you try to get a reporter or blogger not to talk about something, the more likely they are to dig a little deeper and talk even more.

I recently ran into this on a project I am working on where the project manager asked me not to send emails about the project, especially ways in which it is being mismanaged. Given the nature of the project, I won’t be writing about it here, but I am actively removing myself from that project.

Here in the Connecticut media, we have recently had an interesting development. George Gombossy, who used to work for the Hartford Courant recently left in a dispute over an article he was writing concerning one of the larger advertisers at the Hartford Courant. It hasn’t shut up Mr. Gombossy. He now writes a blog, CT Watchdog which tells its potential advertisers, “Advertise in this space and you will be treated just as fairly as non-advertisers.”

In addition, Mr. Gombossy spoke about what has gone on with him and the Hartford Courant on Connecticut Public Radio’s show, “Where we live”. I managed to catch portions of the show as I drove from one client to another and it raised many important questions. Of course it explored the issues of what role should an advertiser have over the news that is covered in a paper they advertise on, but it explored many other important questions. What responsibility should a news outlet have for running advertisements that look like they are news articles?

Mr. Gombossy spoke about the different standards that apply to newspapers and blogs, as well as to comments placed on newspaper sites and blogs. He suggested that when people write for a newspaper, they investigate in deeper detail than bloggers typically investigate their stories. There are a few good reasons for this. Reporters are paid to investigate. They have more time and more resources. As such, they also have much more responsibility. For bloggers that are writing on their own free time, most often with no compensation and little resources, they cannot always investigate as deeply as they would like or as paid reporters can.

This brings us to the bigger question of the future of news. Bloggers typically give away their content for free. They may try to get some revenue from advertising or from jobs that come up as a result of their blogging, but it is hard to sustain. The LA Times is reporting that the News Corporation is pushing to create an online news consortium “that would charge for news distributed online and on portable devices -- and potentially stem the rising tide of red ink.”

Unfortunately, unless they can get everyone to play along, people will just change to free news sources, and bloggers, especially those on the left, are unlikely to play along with the News Corporation.

So, where will bloggers as well as hyperlocal journalists, citizen journalists and other independent writers find the resources to support their habit? It is a topic that is often discussed on various mailing lists. One popular approach is various forms of online fundraising. Spot.us is providing a great model where people can contribute to specific investigative reports. I am sure other such efforts will emerge over time. In addition, as bloggers and journalists write on local issues, I expect that hyperlocal advertising, similar to what helped local newspapers so much in the years of yore will emerge with better revenue models for bloggers and journalists.

Whatever ends up being the mechanism the bloggers and journalists use to fund their activities in the future, it is unlikely that large advertisers will manage to convince writers to not write what they are passionate about. Instead, providing quality goods and services seems like a much better way of making sure that more positive stories and less negative stories are circulated, and that is good for everyone.