The Ethics of Mommy Blogging

A storm’s a’ brewin in the mommy blogosphere:

With book deals, TV appearances and thousands of readers, moms who detail every moment of their domestic lives online produce some of the Web’s most well-read blogs.

Many of these “mommy bloggers” even draw the attention of companies that send them free product samples—everything from toys to baby strollers to video game consoles—in the hopes of getting positive coverage.

But to some, these freebies aren’t necessarily a good thing. Readers have complained they can no longer trust their favorite blogger’s advice. Veteran women bloggers grumble that newcomers sully the genre’s reputation by demanding free products and trips. Newsweek.com published an article last month headlined, “Trusted Mom or Sellout?”

“There has been a turn of goodwill [against mommy bloggers],” said Liz Gumbinner, the publisher and editor-in-chief of Cool Mom Picks. “A year ago, bloggers were rising stars. Six months later, really big marketers like Wal-Mart got into the game and started backing bloggers.

“That created a new paradigm: An A-list blogger was not the one who wrote the best and had the most influence, but had the most marketing attention and free products,” she added. “It created a new generation of bloggers who blogged to get free stuff.”

So Gumbinner and other women bloggers are taking steps to become more transparent and stem what they fear is a backlash against their profession.

What do you think? Should there be a code for mommy blogging, or is it every woman for herself? And does this kind of thing apply to blogging in general? Is blogging only “real” when there are no perks involved?