Last week I posted about a scandal brewing in the blogosphere: a group called Mom Central arranged a conference call between the Corn Refiners Association (makers of high fructose corn syrup) and so-called “mommy bloggers” in which the CRA presented its case for the controversial corn sweetener. I reported that “[m]oms who wrote favorable pieces about HFCS were then rewarded with $50 gift cards,” and I wondered whether these bloggers were complying with the new FTC requirement that they disclose such compensation in their posts.
Yesterday I received this reply from the Corn Refiners Assocation’s Social Media Manager, Therese Pompa:
Bettina,
I would like to clarify a few misperceptions in relation to the educational campaign we conducted with bloggers. We reached out to bloggers to respond to questions and to address the misinformation that exists when it comes to added sugars. The webinar is publicly available at http://www.cornsugar.com/momcentral, so you and your readers can take a look. We also did not reward moms with “favorable pieces” with a $50 gift card. We compensated the bloggers with a $50 gift card for their time, and then they wrote the post in their own voice – we had no requirements or control on what they wrote.
Also to provide clarity to this specific campaign, no word count or links were given. All of the bloggers involved in this campaign gave full disclosure.
If you have any questions in regard to our campaign or high fructose corn syrup, please feel free to reach out to me at tpompa at corn.org.
Thank you,
Therese, Social Media Manager, Corn Refiners Association.
I thanked Ms. Pompa for the information provided, and I regret that I erroneously stated that the bloggers were only paid for favorable posts. I was also able to track down one “mommy blog” post stemming from the conference call and that author did disclose that she had received a gift card (with no amount stated).
Nonetheless, I still take issue with the whole Mom Central model. When bloggers are paid by a client about whom they’ll write a post, human nature dictates that few, if any, unfavorable posts are likely to be written. Moreover, these bloggers are sought out particularly because they’re trusted by their readers, so even the gift card disclosure may not induce the skepticism that might be warranted in this sort of situation.
I want to be clear that I’m not opining either way on the HFCS question itself. There’s a lot of conflicting information out there on whether the sweetener is any worse than other sugars, and I’m as confused as anyone. But if a blogger I liked and trusted had written a post espousing all of the CRA’s talking points, I would likely believe them.
And that seems wrong to me, given all that transpired behind the scenes.
Ed Bruske says
The Corn Refiners are absolutely right: There’s no difference between high-fructose corn syrup and sugar. They are equally dangerous and have no place in school food.
That said, they have no business giving gifts to bloggers who may be writing on this issue, and any blogger who takes a gift from someone they may be writing about has an ethical problem.
Christina @ Spoonfed says
Bloggers shouldn’t be paid by companies/special interests to write about those companies/special interests. Period. Doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad or neutral. In my newspaper reporter days, we had very strict ethics rules about accepting gifts or services from sources, and those rules were in place not so much because reporters might be influenced by a free lunch, but because there would always be the *perception* that they might have been influenced.
And on the matter of HFCS itself: Whether or not people believe that HFCS is any worse than regular table sugar, the fact is that any refined sugar not only has no nutritional value whatsoever — it’s actually an anti-nutrient, which means your body uses up valuable resources to process it. And there’s no way to legitimately put a positive spin on that.
Spoonfed: Raising kids to think about the food they eat
Therese (CRA) says
@Bettina Thank you for posting my response as a new blog post. When talking to various bloggers, a lot of what I hear
is that they want to be compensated for their time. I can completely understand this – I blog occasionally and have made efforts in the past to increase the consistency of my posts, and I know it is hard work – we value the bloggers’ time and wanted to compensate them for this time.
However, it is important to stress that the most important part of this webinar was the educational piece, where bloggers were asked to go through their pantries, look at the various sugars that are in their food items and develop questions they had on high fructose corn syrup and added sugars as a whole. I cannot speak for the individual bloggers and what was going through their minds when they wrote their posts. I can however speak to the great questions that were brought to the table, which tells me they did their research; it is also important to note that quite a few bloggers have posted follow up posts defending their position and have kept their posts live even in the face of negative comments, and even though the small gift card we gave them didn’t require this courageousness.
Our efforts are to share the scientific facts and educate on the confusion that surrounds added caloric sweeteners, and that is what we did in this webinar.
Thank you for your feedback; it is valued and we have an open door policy if you have any other thoughts.
Therese Pompa, Social Media Manger, CRA
Renee says
Well, I have to admit that I find “educational” and “any industrial food group” to be mutually exclusive. Let’s be honest –it’s propaganda.