Cisco asked us to unpublish that video until next month because it contained some info about one of its partners that is under embargo. - Robert Scoble

We had to listen because they paid us to do those videos. If we had gotten those videos as regular journalists or bloggers we would have left them up and said "sorry, you don't get to pull them down." - Robert Scoble

It will be back up after April 1. - Robert Scoble

Judy: I really wish they would have thought about these issues before we had published. Makes us all look bad. But when partners are involved sometimes you can't see all the issues before publishing, unfortunately. - Robert Scoble

This is why big companies don't give much access to real workers, though. Too many constituencies to serve. One team thinks they are OK to publish. Another team, after seeing them, says "um, gotta pull those down." - Robert Scoble

Downside of pretend-journalism, indeed. Respectfully, you should get out of "real" journalism -- you're fouling the ocean. - Dave Newton

is it a written agreement or not?!! but after all it is a moral agreement, the question to ask is the fellowing, will big company open doors to blogger any time and for any one?I doubt that they will do so often, the amazing fact is however they are big they can do efficient communication, why haven't do those video and to spread them using their own means (blog) or any thing? does big company weak in social ? - abdellah

A couple questions come to mind... You knew the downside of taking the money so 1) why did you? Because of Rocky's situation? 2) Real journalism is blind to these money issues because they are "independent." If traditional papers are going bye-bye, where are we, the people, going to get our independent news from? With Rackable, you will still have some strings attached for certain issues, but at least I know in advance where you are coming from. - Herschel

Anything about EZchip in there? Is that the partner? No, wait Marvell is re selling the EZchip into Cisco. That could be the partner. Network processing at wire speed! - Stephen Pickering

So who exactly is Dave Newton? - "I'm a former broadcaster, advertising agency owner". What water are you swimming in Dave? - Brian Sullivan

The question is, is it clear to the reader that the piece was paid for? If it is then its _just_ and advertisement and if its mixed in with regular journalism then it should be marked as such. Just as it is in the regular print media. - Simon Lucy

Herschel: yes, partly. I was looking for ways to fund Rocky. I also knew I would get inside access no one else will ever get (which is true, I interviewed two guys who've been inside Cisco for decades who never give interviews). I also knew it would have downsides. - Robert Scoble

So your passing on the money to noble causes is a kind of protest to the Cisco actions? - Brian Sullivan

Dave: "real" journalists do pay-per-stuff too, they just do it under "advertorial" banners and often leave their names off of it. Ansel Adams did his art, and he also worked for Polariod and Kodak. People who make media need to make money and as long as people are transparent and disclose when they have conflicts they should be allowed to decide what they want to do. - Robert Scoble

@Brian -Since this is FriendFeed, it was pretty easy to find Dave Newton's LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in... - Daniel J. Pritchett

Brian: my passing on the money is one way to demonstrate that my judgment was not corrupted. Yes. - Robert Scoble

I thought this line was hilarious: "Real journalism is blind to these money issues because they are 'independent.'" - Paul Rodriguez

Daniel -- yes I know -- where do you think the quote was from? I was trying to determine which side of the fence Dave Newton is currently on. - Brian Sullivan

there was one part of that video that unfortunately had some details that made one of our partners uncomfortable until their announcement. It will go back up, unedited, after the embargo is released. (I work at Cisco- http://blogs.cisco.com/authors...) - Douglas Gourlay

Douglas works for Cisco and is part of the team who hired us to do two days of interviews with the top geeks and team. - Robert Scoble

I thought Douglas worked for Cisco data center side? Is "intel" a Freudian slip related to the partner who wanted the video removed? - Dane

Dane: I fixed my comment. Douglas works for Cisco. - Robert Scoble

Ansel Adams is a photographer - not a journalist. There's a big difference. I think you deserve credit for being transparent, Robert, but you did take the money and sell your services to Cisco. My concern is we'll seeing more of this as traditional media collapses: http://tinyurl.com/djw4qs - George F. Snell III

Dark: right, maybe not a good comparison. I do think we'll see a lot more of this too, though. On the other side, though, brands like ReadWrite Web are getting more and more popular because they don't allow people to do these kinds of things. Me? My Microsoft experience taught me that being inside lets me get some kinds of content and that as long as I'm transparent about it so my readers will know my potential conflicts of interest I don't see a problem with it. - Robert Scoble

My point about Ansel, though, was that if you want to do your "pure" stuff, aka "art" or "pure journalism" then you've gotta find ways to pay your rent. I don't mind it when people do both "pure" and "paid" as long as they tell me when they are getting paid so I know it's not "pure." - Robert Scoble

Ansel's son mentioned to me that Ansel approached his photography differently when he was doing it for himself or when he was doing it for Kodak (he did advertising photos that hung in Grand Central Station for Kodak, which is something I didn't realize about Ansel). Oh, and a photographer +is+ a journalist. Ansel's photos of the West are VERY important today as they document a bunch of stuff that doesn't exist today. - Robert Scoble

I would much rather have people reporting information be honest, declare their potential bias or lack of objectivity and state the reasons in a straightforward transparent fashion than to blindly claim they are unbiased and totally objective. Nobody is completely unbiased. - Brian Sullivan

I have no problem with scoble (or anyone) taking the money for work of this type as long as they are clear about it. It gave Cisco the control they wanted (its a shame that this happened but thats what they paid for). I can understand the problem if he was reviewing a product or even worse doing a group test ("i thought hte flip mini was the best camera and by the way thanks to flip for the large brown envelope full of cash i recieved). I say get off Robert's back He did a good thing g and gave us a great r - Jamie Vidamour