Update 2010-07-09: Scienceblogs has removed PepsiCo’s Food Frontiers blog from the site
As Chris Clarke says: I don’t see how this could possibly end badly.
Twitter-snark has commenced using the #scibloxymoron hashtag.
Reactions from some Scienceblogs bloggers:
- @PalMD at ReportingonHealth.org
- Jason G. Goldman at The Thoughtful Animal
- GrrlScientist,
- Janet at Adventures in Ethics and Science,
- Abbie at ERV
Well now that certainly is a conflict of interest, mm-hmm.
Did Pepsi really think no one would notice? or that people just wouldn’t care?
At least they do prominently display the PepsiCo logo in the sidebar and are upfront about the relationship, and the editor seems to be allowing highly critical comments to be published on the initial post (I’ll link directly from comments because a “nofollow” attribute is auto-added).
They’re going to be so tightly scrutinised though – how can it possibly be worth it for PepsiCo to do this? And how can SEED have possibly thought that a financial agreement of this kind is worth junking so much of the goodwill that the Sb brand has built up over years?
The entire concept just squicks me.
That’s even more heinous than McDonalds selling healthy salads!
Yeah!!
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/say_hello_topepsico_wtf.php
Wow. To be honest I’m a little surprised ScienceBlogs let the reply post go up. It’s all the same website, right? Different blog hosted by the same site. Would that be an inter-website cross blog flame war?
SEED media have made a big thing about hands-off editorial non-interference for all Sb bloggers – that’s a major reason that many scibloggers decided that they could ethically go there to take advantage of the complimentary webhosting and maybe make a few bucks from a pro-rata based on siteclicks on the advertising.
So they seem to be living up to that side of their understanding with their bloggers. I still see it as a move that degrades the Sb “brand”.
Carl Zimmer of the Loom posts new links for the Scienceblogs diaspora, to help people re-follow. http://bit.ly/aw2L9R (This is a tweet of Chris Clarke’s)
Scienceblogs has removed PepsiCo’s Food Frontiers blog from the site.