Marty Wisckol has the story here. Red Counter-Placer blogger Sgt. York has been revealed to have been on the payroll for GOP Gubenatorial candidate Steve Poizner. So much for Poizner’s ethics.
From the story:
The Orange County-based Red County blog is accustomed to writing about other people’s controversies, but today they wrote about one of their own: Their most outspoken supporter of gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner was cut loose after it was learned he was getting paid by the Poizner campaign.
Poizner spokesman Jarrod Agen fired back, saying Red County had become a cheerleader for Poizner opponent Meg Whitman. He said the Poizner campaign knew that the blogger – Placer County Republican Aaron Park, nom de blog of Sgt. York – was working for one of their consultants and blogging for Red County.
“There are lots of consultants who blog on websites and if a blog has rules, it’s up to the blogger to know the rules,†Agen said. “It’s an issue that doesn’t involve our campaign.
Red County is a prominent Republican blog that frequently features debate between different GOP factions. The rule there is that you’re blogging on behalf of a client, you need to disclose that, according to Red County’s Chip Hanlon. York did not make that disclosure until recently, Hanlon said.
Chip Hanlon’s post about it is here.
Chip writes:Â
“I disclose this publicly here to preserve the credibility of this site and its other hard working writers, and because this is a direct violation of our internal policies; any contributor writing on behalf of a paying client must simply disclose that relationship—not too difficult.
Upon my reminding York of this rule, however, he begged that we not make it known, saying he would lose the Poizner payments if this pay-for-content scheme were disclosed.”
While we certainly disagree with Red County on just about everything political, Hanlon should be commended for his ethical handling of this situation.
Chip did the right thing and deserves to be commended. While we rarely agree politically, Red County has made it a clear practice to disclose such conflicts of interest. Like all of us they sometimes may miss the initial disclosure, if the do they correct it soon enough.
Thank you guys, although it should be noted that Martin was reporting on Chip’s post (we broke the story ourselves)– it wasn’t us responding to Martin’s story.
It wasn’t so much that Aaron was being paid by the Poizner campaign, so much that he didn’t disclose it — to the readers or to us. We have a long-standing rule that if contributors blog about a client, they need to disclose the relationship, and readers can factor that into their judgment about the post.