Interesting discussion going on under that post now, although Lucy seems a bit prickly towards anyone that doesn't agree with her.
Ex journalists keep throwing out this argument that gifts and freebies are rife in the world of traditional print and bloggers are being held to higher standards, which is "not fair". As far as I am aware the ASA rules are the same regardless of the medium, so I wondered whether there was something specific to journalists and had a look at the NUJ code of conduct. Points 2 and 10 seem to suggest there must be a LOT of ex 'journalists' breaking the code of conduct? Seems like journalists should be right on board with transparency rules, and the risk of conflict of interests, and not trying to hide gifted products from their readers.
The code of conduct has set out the main principles of UK and Irish journalism since 1936. The code is part of the rules of the union.
www.nuj.org.uk
And this is what the Guardian code of conduct says :
Commercial products No Guardian journalist or freelance primarily associated with GNM should endorse commercial products unless with the express permission of their head of department or managing editor. Neither should they be involved in producing advertisement features (advertorials).