[tsk tsk] daily beast, does macy’s plug bloomingdale’s?

I’m such a Girl Scout. Yesterday I clicked through all the recommendations on The Daily Beast’s BUZZ BOARD to see if anyone besides Sophie Dahl had recommended a hotel. It turned out that people have been recommending hotels, restaurants and, get this, entire countries (New Zealand and Nicaragua) since the site's inception.

In November, comedian and all-around wit Mo Rocca suggested The Stonebridge Inn & Spa in Batesville, Indianapolis. (I bet he was in the area for a wedding.) Last month, pollster Douglas Schoen raved about the new Canyon Ranch in Miami Beach.

More recently, Radha Arora, regional V.P. and General Manager of Beverly Wilshire, a Four Seasons Hotel recommended the Four Seasons Hotel George V. Okay, the Hotel George is part of his company, so there’s self-interest in getting the name of another hotel in the Four Seasons chain out there, but at least the connection’s obvious. Four Seasons is in the title of his current hotel post.

Not so clear is a recent recommendation from Shane Krige, General Manager of the Plaza Hotel, for Fairmont Mayakoba. Nowhere in his entry or bio do he or The Daily Beast mention that the Plaza also is a Fairmont-managed property. Not owned, but managed. I know this because of my hotel proclivities. For most people to realize there was any connection, they’d have to click on the Plaza link, which goes to the Fairmont website. So, we’re not talking cover-up. But the disclosure, if you could call it that, is embedded, to say the least.

I can’t help but wonder if Krige was slightly conflicted over this; he hardly pulls out all the stops. He writes, “The combination of impeccable service and luxurious accommodations gave my wife and me an incredible sense of well being. It was the perfect place to recharge from the fast pace of New York City.” Now, as General Manager of one of the world’s great hotels, he’d probably get impeccable service at any hotel, Fairmont or not, the moment the staff detected his status. (Have you ever gone out to dinner with a chef? Wild!) At a hotel in the same chain, the staff’s jobs depend on his approval! Plus, besides being anything but anonymous, I’m sure the Kliges got an employee discount. Even if they paid full price, plugs like this are free advertising – which in my book are only acceptable if the reader knows about the connection.

This is one of my biggest bugaboos about the blogosphere, New Media’s repudiation of basic journalistic standards about disclosure. This just undercuts its credibility. Maybe it’s not Watergate. But still.

Tsk tsk to the Daily Beast.

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