I guess I always knew this would happen. While I try really hard not to be a negative blogger, there are times when I write a zinger about a particular brand… and it’s usually for good reason. I do it here on The Holistic Pet Food Blog and on my other blogs. … That’s all about to change.
On another blog, a very popular one where I journal my experiences learning how to run a marathon while I raise money to fight leukemia (http://shecanrun.wordpress.com), I made a negative comment about one of the quick energy bars that I eat. My point was that a company who touts being so almighty organic and healthy ought to inspect the places where they buy their raw materials. After all, in the retail clothing industry, we hold retailers accountable if they purchase clothing that is produced from child labor, right? So I don’t expect every manufacturer to inspect their source plants but I DO expect the almighty ones to.
If several of the 3400 manufacturers who bought peanut butter from Peanut Corporation of America did this, we might not have had such a bad situation develop.
Anyway, last Thursday I received an email from “senior counsel” of the company I had criticized. He spent a paragraph complimenting me on my running and telling me about his own running (thus letting me know he’d read several of my blog articles), then spent a paragraph thanking me for being such a great customer of his company (thus letting me know he’d pulled up my records and knew everything I’d ever ordered)… and by the way, at this point it’s the equivalent of letting you know they know where your kids go to school, intimidate, intimidate.
And then he launched into how people had reported to him that based on my blog, people were refusing to buy their product. Sorry, that was a flat-out lie, used to justify what he was about to ask me to do. I can tell you the hits on that article and it wasn’t much.
Long story short, they sent a ton of material telling me they’d been the “victim” of that bad peanut butter company and ”suggested” that I reconsider what I wrote and “knew” that I would do the right thing.
I did the right thing. I deleted the article. I sent a terse “done” email to that guy, no apologies, no sentences. Just “done”. And then I called the company and cancelled my “preferred customer” account. Who wants to order from a company who spends “senior counsel” time on little guys like me?
Then I went through this pet food blog and I’m removing everything that is negative… Just because I’m mad.
You know how this happens, right? They simply set up an alert to let them know every time a page gets indexed by Google that uses certain keywords, like their company name.
Well, I really like my Holistic Pet Food blog and I love my readers. I happen to know how easy it is to complain about a blog and get it shut down. One well-placed kick from a “senior counsel” and bye-bye blog.
I very rarely say anything negative about a particular company. Mostly, this blog educates about good and bad ingredients.
But you have to wonder, how objective can you be if you don’t dare say anything bad about a particular company?
Well, I’ll continue to educate on ingredients and pet food recalls. And I never did write “stay away from” articles. But I just hate having to run what I write through a little internal “censorship monitor” to make sure I’m not going to hear from an upset company.
Filed under: Holistic Pet Food | Tagged: censorship, news, peanut butter recall
Is it really that easy for a “senior counsel” to shut down a blog that says negative things about a product? I mean, it’s your opinion, right? What legal right do they have? I’m disappointed you deleted any negative comments from this blog, and feel you can’t speak your mind in the future. I can imagine “senior counsel” making your life difficult, but that’s their tactic isn’t it? You basically self-censored after one strongly worded communication — i.e. exactly what they wanted to happen. I think it’s your personal choice how much you want to push back to these kinds of threats. I really do appreciate the time you spend researching and writing on this blog. But in the end, you weren’t censored. You censored yourself. Would you possibly reconsider?
Amy,
Thank you. You’re right, it’s self-censorship based on a very lengthy and strongly worded email, probably actually written by a law clerk or admin. Never underestimate the power of legal intimidation. I knew what they were doing, they knew what they were doing. It was safer to back down.
Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to shut down a blog, especially one hosted on a free service like this one is. Imagine how blog host folks would handle it if the senior counsel’s next step was to contact them. They don’t want a fight, they’d just say, adios, go find a new home for your blog.
In fact, the original iteration of this blog was shut down in the first few weeks of the pet food recall. Let me tell you, since at the time I was the only one reporting on the scope of the animal sickness and deaths and had 1300 unique readers per day, it hurt big time to be shut down.
I’ve thought about how to write without attracting the kind of attention where someone would do more than just “suggest”. I actually hear regularly from companies whose names appear in my articles, especially if they like what I’ve written.
These companies basically use “google alert” type services to alert them whenever their company or product names are mentioned in a blog article. So if I really want to go negative, I can simply use initials, like, Rxxxxx Rxx’s new dog food.
Sadly, bloggers don’t have the protections of newspapers and I’m using a free hosting service. Not sure where this is going to take me. Sometimes, things just need to be said. I would sure appreciate everyone’s suggestions.