Internal biases are the Achilles heel of critics, but the good ones are always examining them and ferreting them out. Nevertheless, internal biases are an entirely different beast from quid pro quo.

Ok, let me explain. Next time you post, just paste in this text and see how your followers like it:

And how much is your opinion influenced by how “nice” they are to you, and how much free shit you get from the deal? Before you tell another one of us that no review is impartial, read Garlic and Sapphires and learn the lengths Ruth Reichl went to to go unnoticed when she reviewed restaurants. She felt she owed it to…

They’re bad journalists, then. Doesn’t make any of it right. And if they work for a reputable outlet and that outlet finds out about it, they’d be fired, as they should be. Grubbing for swag is a terrible look.

It used to be “just not done” to ask for freebies in exchange for positive coverage. It used be considered whoring/shilling/being a hack.

Thank you.

I’m not surprised at all that you don’t understand what differentiates an impartial review from a paid one.

A pr person is doing his or her job, which is to do whatever it takes to get a brand’s message out to all forms of media. To me, it’s lying for money, but no one is pretending that it’s objective. Influencers have no agreed-upon ethical standards, they often pretend they’re being objective, despite the fact that they…

I’m talking about the difference between journalists and bloggers/influencers. Not pr people and influencers.

Look, I’d rather starve than work in pr. But consumers don’t read press releases. Journalists do. And they ignore most of them. Newspaper journalists are literally not allowed to accept free shit. Freelancers for the Times travel section can’t even take free fam trips. So they are passing up lots of swag and money in…

But a person who sees that one request as part of a larger movement of assholes asking for free things might finally want to expose the assholery of the influencer economy.

You’re certainly entitled to your opinion, but if you spend much time dealing with those in social media/influencer circles, you would be a lot more sympathetic to their perspective, I think. I work with many people in the restaurant industry and the stories they tell me about demands for free food/threats of bad…

Uh...because the business is doing exactly what it says it does, which is to try to sell their shit. Bloggers are doing what journalists do, minus the pesky ethics. But they’re not being truly upfront about it.

You sound really defensive...like in a personal way...as if you do this kind of “work” too and feel a little conflicted about it.

But a pr firm/ad agency is way more upfront about the terms of the relationship. And actual journalists have the job of acting as mediators between the spin doctors and consumers, separating the pitch from reality. “Influencers” just write whatever they’re told to say while pretending to love whatever freebie they…

Who says you’re entitled write reviews full time? And why should anyone believe you if you’re asking for freebies? Do you work for an established publication or your own blog? Most publications will ask for temporary loaners of bikes or other big-ticket items, then return them. Is that what you do? A friend of mine…

Only put yourself in the shoes of a business owner who has dozens of Instagramers with 1500 followers asking for free rooms every week? You’d get tired of it, too.

As someone who interacts professionally with a number of “influencers,” I am far more sympathetic to the hotel, which is probably inundated with these requests on the regular. They have every right to be fed up and probably pulled this pitch from the day’s pile of people asking for free shite. This kind of media,…

I don’t even understand how someone could see that as a slam on Faye Dunaway or Priuses. The point is that someone of Dunaway’s stature should be able to buy whatever damn car she wants and she clearly wasn’t paid fairly for decades. Maybe there was a more politic way to say it, but it drives the point home.

I enjoyed it as light entertainment and the visuals are gorgeous, but I found it kind of meh in general. Rachel Brosnahan is supposed to be spunky, but too often read, to me, as alternately preening or wink-wink. And her comedy isn’t funny, which is a big problem in a show about a comedian.