Thank you ,Thursday read your great A Photo Editor – The Ethics of Reviewing blog ,your blog have a lot of very important knowledge and information for business ethics cases ….

I haven’t placed any trust in published reviews (for any product or service) in years which is too bad since I know there are some that are objective… but how can one be sure?

Another problem with reviews may not even be the honesty or motivation of the reviewer but also their experience with the product category and their own subjective slant on what makes a good product. Everyone’s priorities are different.

1. Product reviews are mostly used as decision support. While I don’t doubt there are some people (lets call them morons) who make purchase decisions based solely on stuff they read; I believe most people do some form of independent analysis and consider an aggregate of third party reviews as supporting evidence to justify the decision they’ve already made. While doing the best, most ethical, most exhaustive product review will undoubtedly be appreciated, I’m not convinced it will translate into a substantial increase in paid subscriptions.

2. When it comes to cameras (most consumer electronics really) exhaustive product reviews aren’t really practical. Digital cameras have, at best, a 24-month life cycle. In most cases it’s more like 12-18 months with the majority of sales coming within the first six months of availability. Unless your review is coincident with FRS, it’s probably not going to get that much attention. That means you really have to get a pre-production unit, which means cozying up to the vendors. Then there is a question of what have you really reviewed? — something with all the buttons in the same place as the production model. Most pre-production versions of electronics tend to be buggy with performance that is not always consistent with the production version.

3. Then there is expertise. Who’s opinion would you trust more: a professional photographer who shot the previous version of a specific camera for the past two years; or a guy who has touched every digital camera on the market for a couple of days? Most product reviewers fit in to the latter category. While their impressions might be interesting, a real photographer who uses a specific product every day would have more credibility.

4. Lastly on the subject of press/analyst junkets, I don’t think they are as evil as Mike Johnson implies. Vendor briefings can be an opportunity to bring together a collection of company executives that would be difficult to assemble for a road-trip kind of briefing tour. And getting them out of a corporate setting is beneficial for a number of reasons. Sure there is an obvious attempt to influence people with a nice setting and good food. But how many people would show up for a briefing scheduled in a Holiday Inn in Detroit in January? A nice venue is part of the package. I do think both sides (vendors and publications) should take steps to avoid obvious bribery. For instance publications should pay for their own travel to the event and forbid writers from accepting anything beyond basic give-aways (a golf shirt, a bag, etc. — stuff that costs less than $100). If you are accepting free cameras, lenses, lighting gear, etc. you’ve been bought. The same rules should hold for the vendors — briefings are about relationship building not buying positive coverage.

Maybe I’m reading the wrong (or, actually right) magazines, but it was always (needlessly) beaten into me by my mentors in the magazine business to make sure all reviews and content came from an honest and pure place. And, while it’s true we reviewed products that we actually thought were worthwhile passing on to the readers, we’d absolutely call a spade a spade.

What I’m saying, is, I don’t think there are as many “bought and sold” reviews as you think there are. That’s the old model of magazine business and I think lots of reputable, mainstream titles are honest and “clean” about their reviews.

Sure, there are still many working in that old-guy way, but I’d bet that those are the same magazines that are generally becoming irrelevant very quickly and are probably already dead, but they just don’t know it yet…

I use to trust review artices in the past when I was just starting out in photgraphy but now I take everything with a shaker of salt. I find very few that I think are objective in what they do and haven’t soldout. Just MHO

BE HONEST
How honest are you? It is difficult to communicate with and to trust someone with whom you do not naturally connect with. Be clear about what you mean, sincere about what you say and reflective about your timing so that you avoid misunderstanding and developed trusting relationships.

There is a wonderful piece in September’s Outside Magazine by a guy named Haggart that has a bit of cross-over here.

As long you are coming from a base of respect and integrity as a coach and teacher then the path is set.

If your loaner camera is less than you would like, then you owe it the manufacture to help make it better, you owe it to your readers to keep them informed.

The honesty and respect you build on your blog will have a direct impact to your other endeavors, ; articles, etc.