The Bald Eagle is the national bird of the US, the Common Loon is the national bird of Canada, and the small, flightless, and oh so tasty chicken is now the international bird of ethical dilemmas; at least according to Jason Calacanis;

The ethical chickens are coming home to roost

I really wondered how long it would take Jason to bring up Armstrong Williams and compare his level of ethics to those of us writing for Marqui. I’m not interested in defending the program in this case. I think that anyone who is reading my stuff can make up their own mind about where I stand, and I’m not going to tell you what to think, or presume to know better than you. What I do question is a statement that is based on nothing factual, which the remainder of his arguement is based on;

To take money to blog about something—and disclose it or not—works against the public’s expectation that blogs are, first and foremost, upfront and honest.

If people believe that blogs are all upfront and honest, then people really might all be very very stupid and need to be told what to believe. I have read any number of blogs filled with lies, rumors, inaccuracies, libel, or half-truths that simply boggle the mind. They are often flying political flags, but often these are the blogs of misinformed people who can’t be bothered to do any research before publishing. If you honestly believe that you can trust everything that you read in a blog, or that you see on Fox News or CNN, or ANYWHERE, then you’re not going to fare well in the big bad world.

The childlike, innocent approach to web logs, insisting that there must be a Santa Claus because that blogger said so and he’d never lie; while charming; is a recipe for disaster.

For the record, I think it would be great if we could trust our “professional” journalists – even the ones who aren’t being paid a quarter of a million dollars for their opinions. I would love it if we could take blogs as a whole on face value, as the most honest form of writing out there with no biases or anything. Check out LGF from the political right, or AmericaBlog from the left. They often have a completely opposite interpretation of the truth, even based on the same stories from the same sources; one side says that Williams is a hero, one says he’s Satan; which is true? These are both blogs and they should be expected to be honest, right?

If the court of public opinion is juried by the same people who believe everything they read, then I question ITS ethics, not a fully disclosed blogger’s.

Check out Molly’s post as well…

Maybe Jason has started quietly writing for Marqui, and is posting like this in order to generate a stir; both to draw even more attention to his own Weblogs Inc. as well as to Marqui. Gosh, I sure wish he’d disclose that if that’s the case.