Blogging's Dirty Little Secret

re: Blogging's Dirty Little Secret

Opal Tibble — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 01:37:20 GMT

An interesting topic and I agree with what the others have already said whether this is truly important why am I not seeing diversity with the bloggers you’re hiring? Maybe minorities bloggers aren't applying for the positions offered?

I’m positive that there is discrimination within the blogosphere I’ve encountered it a few times earlier, and I’m sure I will again but I know that blogs of color will get approached. I was, and one of my blogging buddies who is also a minority has been approached. His picture is featured on the main page.

The first time I was approached by an advertiser was last year before I even knew what was going on. I had no clue what PR was, and I wasn’t interested in featuring their products. I recently started monetizing my website in May.

My main website was approached by two advertisers last week I accepted one and rejected the other it didn’t fit with my audience. With the one I accepted I wrote a simple contract, gave them a price along with the terms and requested payment in advance and sent it to them by email.

They accepted my offer, and I received payment later that day same day. If a person checks my about page or even reads my comments they can see that I am a minority.

The majority of my commenter's is white, but I’m starting to receive more minorities. I was recently given the opportunity to be featured in an online minority magazine, and I’m excited it will give me a chance to connect with other minority readers and I’ll have a chance to add more blogs to my RSS Feed and maybe I’ll gain some minority readers in the process.

I have thought of ways to increase minority readership onto my website I used to run a website that mainly focused on minority issues.

The parenting blogosphere's lack of diversity at Anti-Racist Parent - for parents committed to raising children with an anti-racist outlook

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 12:12:56 GMT

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re: Blogging's Dirty Little Secret

ZeitgeistMama — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:01:52 GMT

Also, while the new baby avatar is awfully cute for those that don't have a pic, it's pretty much the epitome of cute WHITE baby, dontcha think?

re: Blogging's Dirty Little Secret

Karen Murphy — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 02:51:33 GMT

Mocha, thanks for checking back! I'm glad to hear that you are seeing one-on-one enlightenment with the marketers you're talking to. Do you think it will really make a difference in the end? I can only hope it will. Perhaps the blogging world can lead the way for the rest of the media and eventually create significant changes in social perception. Maybe that's my idealism talking, but I think the world is ready for change.

re: Blogging's Dirty Little Secret

Mocha — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 02:33:33 GMT

I am glad I came back to see if Karen replied. Thanks, Karen!

However, I feel that I must respond to "Reader" who seems to offer yet another excuse to marketers. The point is this: we all spend money. We all click on links. How do they know only "white consumers" do this? In fact, the marketers I've spoken to (and after all this, it's a lot) have all humbly apologized because they *have* failed to think about their consumers of color and are realizing their error.

Thanks again for writing about this, Karen.

re: Blogging's Dirty Little Secret

Reader — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 00:47:29 GMT

Is it possible that "people of color" have been found to be less likely to follow side-bar links on blogs? Or that the company has not found an effective way to draw these people to their sites via blog advertising...?

I don't really know, but it is possible this guy's company has some sort of reseach behind it?

I don't know whether I would believe it or not, but I thought I'd throw it out there as a possible "reason" they had for saying that.

re: Blogging's Dirty Little Secret

Karen Murphy — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:25:09 GMT

You did stir the pot, Mocha, and here's the post you wrote about it, because I think people should know what happened. The more we know, the more we think.

www.blogher.org/marginalization-marketing

re: Blogging's Dirty Little Secret

Mocha — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:10:45 GMT

Cute baby on my pic. Needs a tad more color, though.

Make what you will of that.

re: Blogging's Dirty Little Secret

Mocha — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:06:21 GMT

I've said as much on my own personal blog because I was the one who stirred the pot in the first place. I'll gladly tell the PR people what to do with me and they've even openly admitted that both Stefania and I have highly trafficked blogs with greater numbers than some of the white blogs they pitch.

Honest? Yes.

Crappy? You bet.

re: Blogging's Dirty Little Secret

Karen Murphy — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 21:34:26 GMT

Well, I don't make hiring decisions here at Babble but I've passed along your comments to the people who do.

If you read Stefania's piece, the PR guy she spoke to went on to say, after he said they don't pitch to bloggers of color, that "We don't know what to do with them." Surely that individual wasn't personally responsible for the problem but was reflecting target demographics passed down from above in his organization.

But in order for that to change, our wider view socially has to change first. And what better place to begin than in the media, which drives our perceptions anyway (or reflects them, depending on who you talk to, but it's rather a chicken-or-the-egg argument to me)?

re: Blogging's Dirty Little Secret

Joy — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 20:45:37 GMT

excellent comments above me here. This is not about marketers as being the root of all evil--they are more likely a symptom of larger trends (see right sidebar and general Lack of Diversity). What is going on, culturally, when bloggers of color are not getting the same traffic or same pitches? What can we do about it? How culpable are we, individually?

re: Blogging's Dirty Little Secret

daddy in a strange land — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 20:19:46 GMT

Yeah, well, since somebody else said it first... I love me some CityMama and MetroDad, and you both know that, but it's a bit incongruous to read this post and then look over to the right at the blogger bios, both for Strollerderby and the marquee solo blogs. When these marketers look at sites like this as representative of the market they covet, well, what are they gonna think? Or rather, will their preconceptions be challenged by who they see here?

re: Blogging's Dirty Little Secret

Mom101 — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 20:14:57 GMT

I think the most highly-trafficked blogs (or those with high technorati ratings) are getting pitched. Without getting too sociological and academic and fancy - maybe the question is, why don't people of color have higher trafficked blogs?

Besides Stefania of course, who has like 90 million readers an hour or something.

re: Blogging's Dirty Little Secret

island girl — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 19:20:05 GMT

Well, isn't the pot calling the kettle black?? Babble could help by actually hiring more people of color on their blogs.