Media : Trust No One

So right now you can listen to songs on the radio that have product placement inserted into them, you can watch right-wing pundits praise the administration for backstage cash, and you can read technology reviews of new gadgets from people that were paid to like them.

What's missing? Maybe you could go to the park and feed some ducks that sing the Pepsi jingle, and then go look at the thousand-mile wide trench that they'll dig into the moon to promote Lil' Jon's new album. There is a reason that no media is trusted anymore, and it is because nearly everyone has decided that selling out is more important than the merits of truth/decency.

( No, we're not a bunch of hippies that are angry at rock stars that "sell out" so they can move out of their parents' house. Selling out is abandoning both your message and the reason you exist so that whoever has cash can get their way. )

While we at H.O.P.E. may not always be individually truthful nor decent (There's a rumor a member dowloaded some songs illeagaly in '98), our movement is. We exist to expose the reasons behind bad entertainment, and to take on the symptoms one at a time. And to anyone that thinks they can buy us?

:
From: elsewhen@rushpost.com
Date: Apr 21, 2005 12:34 PM
Subject: RE: Craigslist, get paid to blog
To: Horrified Observers of Pedestrian Entertainment


hello,

very cool blog, and good design too.

thanks for responding to the craigslist posting about getting paid for
a blog entry. here are all the details.

just to be clear... i am paying you to blog about and post a link to a particular page. you are not required to be particularly upbeat, but please do not be overly negative. you are also welcome to be completely ambivalent, but please do not mention that you are being paid to write about it... just be natural and make a normal blog entry.

in any case, it is the link and the mention that i am interested in, and by following up on this offer, you are agreeing to keep the link in your blog, and not delete the link at some point in the future. the link should be a clickable link, and not just the web address.

you are welcome to make a posting about any of the links provided below and i will pay $5. if you have another blog, you are welcome to send that to me, but i will have to review it to make sure that it matches with one of the sites that i manage. if you want a second $5, you can make a second posting after at least one week - it can be about a different topic.

once you have the blog posting up, send me an email with the address of the posting so i can check it, and also please provide your the email address you use for paypal (if you dont have one, it can be any email address)... i will pay right after i check your site, and as long as the conditions listed above are met. i run lots of websites, but i think some of the articles on wisegeek match with your site best... here are the pages that i think fit best with your blog:

www.wisegeek.com/what-is-pop-art.htm
www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-meme.htm
www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-meme.htm
www.wisegeek.com/what-are-urban-legends.htm
www.wisegeek.com/what-are-urban-legends.htm
http://www.wisegeek.com/who-was-vlad-the-impaler.htm


if blogging about any of these things seems unnatural, you can take a look around the site to find something else... but please, let me know first.

thanks,

denis"

Yeah, so we sure could have used that twenty dollars, but sometimes you've got to get all Karate Kid and stop taking shit. Ethically, are we supposed to not reveal this guy's e-mail address? Should we have changed his name to a little XXXX? Should we waste another minute in moral debate over someone with little to no morals?