Blogging's Dirty Little Secret

Karen Murphy — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 18:22:00 GMT

Bloggers are a goldmine to advertisers. Think about it: if you, as an advertiser, could get someone to advertise your product for you, and for practically FREE, wouldn't you? All you'd have to do is maybe send out a sample. That's it! And then you're golden, because you've got all these influential people talking up your product to their buds on the blogosphere! Perfect!

Of course, the PR people for the advertisers are smart. Hey, they have to be! So they try to target bloggers that 1. have readership and therefore influence, and 2. blog about things that sort of relate to the product (or not; I've had some wacky pitches).

Oh, and I should mention #3: that AREN'T people of color.

What??!

Yes. True. Our own CityMama Stefania wrote a revealing and scathing piece about this very practice. Frankly, after reading it I felt sick. Stefania receives pitches from PR people daily for her personal blog CityMama, but her group blog Kimchi Mamas, a Korean identity and culture parenting blog, receives nothing. Zip. Zilch. Zero.

Why? "Because we don't pitch to people of color," says the PR guy Stefania questioned.

It's because Asian people are invisible in the media. Discrimination by invisibility. Which is the worst kind of bigotry because everybody pretends it isn't happening. But think about it: other than as a stereotype, when was the last time you saw Asian people on TV, say, just doing what people do? I was struck during my recent visit to Vancouver, a very multi-cultural city, because it was clear that people of all sorts weren't regarded as being part of one group or another. They were just ... people.

Why isn't it like that in the media? And what can we do about it?

Strollerderby : Kimchi Mamas

Blogging's Dirty Little Secret