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On 16 Oct 2004 01:51:52 GMT, (Gould 0738) wrote:

~~ snippage ~~

When you run a specialty publication addressing a narrow field of interest,
there will certainly be many instances when an article features a company that
is also an advertiser. I suppose to be really uptight about it, we could adopt
a policy that read,

"We will refuse to accept any advertising from your firm for one issue prior
and two issues beyond the month any editorial regarding your company appears."
Not likely to happen. We try not to be whores, but by the same token there's no
point in being a self righteous martyr.

Interesting you should mention that. When I was slowly transitioning
out of the world of corporate piracy and back stabbing, I worked for a
year with the ARRL as a Technical Editor for their main magazine "QST"
and was the de-facto editor of "QEX" which was their heavy theory and
experimental magazine.

I asked that question one time at an Editorial meeting - it was when
several manufacturers were introducing DSP into their products and we
were testing the products - how do we avoid conflicts with brand
loyalty (I was a Yaesu guy for example), etc., personal preference and
still continue to accept ads from the companies.

It was interesting how the ARRL did it. First they would buy the
radios at various retail establishments at retail. Right off the
shelf. Then, they would farm the radios out to individuals by random
lot - some of them went overseas believe it or not. There were two
random reviewers and they were given a week to play with the gear,
write a review and return the radio to HQ. It was then given to a
staffer by random lot (you had to be a minimum Advanced to get one),
given a week and write a review. Then it came to the Technical
Editors who would read the reviews, play with the rigs to see what was
what, then the review was written.

What happened was very enlightening. Once you eliminated all the "my
Kenwood does this well, but...." and "Yaesu sucks because" and "Icom
does this better than..." you got a fairly accurate view of how the
radio preformed, what the faults were and a general impression of the
quality level - a very good picture of what the equipment did, looked
and operated like.

It was very fair.

My problem with boating and fishing mags is that they depend on the
ads for a living, thus saying something like "The Ranger T-top is
undersized and didn't quite fit the center console properly causing
vibrations and their unwanted side effects" is translated into "The
Ranger T-top, while somewhat under engineered, looks good on the boat
and has four rod holders". :)

All the best,

Tom
--------------

"What the hell's the deal with this newsgroup...
is there a computer terminal in the day room of
some looney bin somewhere?"

Bilgeman - circa 2004