Back in the early days of bloogering there was all sorts of concern trolling about "ethics" and "conflicts of interest" and "undisclosed financial interests." I really just laughed at one local journalist when I asked him if they worry about such things for their op-ed contributors? This journalist might have genuinely worried, though without any power to do anything about it, but the point is that there was (and still is) a strange blindness to just how some people manage to print their paymasters' press releases on their op-ed pages. Certainly a bit more of concern than the bloogers and
their issues and whatnot.
