Conflicts of interest in camera reviews

I think this is why so many of us look at test scores and spec sheets.

Stats can be twisted too but it's usually a little more obvious.

People don't have to get a free camera + trip to bermuda to be biased, often all it takes is "I have used brand X for years" and voila - brand X's new camera gets a better review than it deserves.

Neez said:

The same can be said for just about any review site, not just for cameras. Manufacturers give loaners for review, if you print a bad review they most likely won't give you another loaner. You burn enough bridges, you'll have no cameras to review and therefore no sight.

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It's important to make distinctions about the reviewer sites -- a well-known publisher such as DPReview has a much, much more equal power relationship with the manufacturers. The camera companies can't afford to bully or ignore them because they have a large readership and a reputation as a go-to site for reviews.

On the other hand, an unknown blogger with no real reputation or readership, trying to build an income out of clicks and affiliate links, is in a different position. I can imagine camera manufacturers trying to exert much more control over them because, in those cases, the blogger needs access to the cameras much more than the company needs access to the blogger's (small) readership.

For what it's worth, I've reviewed almost 150 cameras for 6 or 8 well-known magazines and websites, including the largest technology publisher in the world, and I've never had a manufacturer try to bully me in any way. Quite the opposite; they bend over backwards to be accommodating.

cptobvious said:

I'm not suggesting all reviewers must be independent, but any reviewer who claims to have any independence should at least add a disclosure to their reviews if it's not truly so, something like 'Company X provided me airfare/lodging/free camera etc. in connection with this review' or 'Company Y provided this review copy to me on the condition that it be positively reviewed.'

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Yes, if a camera company provides anything of substantial value in connection with the review or story that the writer is working on, that should be clearly disclosed. I haven't done an audit, but I believe all of the major camera publishers are pretty good about doing this.

When I signed my first contract to write for CNET way back in 1999, it stated explicitly in the contract that I was not allowed to accept anything worth more than $10 from any company I was covering. Same for my contract with Wired.

Of course, those were the rules on paper, and that certainly doesn't mean they were always followed (although I will say that my editor at CNET was offered an expenses-paid trip to Japan for a factory tour and CNET sent her but they paid her expenses themselves.) Moreover, there are now many people who have turned themselves into one-man publishing operations. That it is now possible to do that is, I think, a huge positive for the world overall, but the downside in some cases is that the bloggers don't have a background in the old standards of independent journalism.

That means the reader has to use some common sense and judgment about what they are reading. I honestly don't think it's that hard to tell the difference between the hucksters and the people trying to provide something that's honest and has real value.

MichaelKJ said:

Not really. They could simply do what several reviewers do, which is to accept a loaner camera and then return it when they have completed their evaluation.

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In the almost 150 reviews I've written, this is exactly how it worked. Now I should note that every one of my reviews was done for a large, established publication -- I don't have a blog of my own, and I've never tried to independently publish any journalism of any kind. I get paid directly for my writing; I'm not trying to create income with clicks and affiliate links.

For what it's worth, no manufacturer has ever offered to let me keep a piece of gear. Some have offered to let me try stuff out separate from any review I was writing, but there was never any quid-pro-quo attached to it. I've never accepted, but I wouldn't be against it ethically; I'd just make sure they understood that I wasn't promising to write about it, one way or the other.

MichaelKJ said:

Taking photographers on expensive trips is designed to corrupt them because the photographers know that there won't be a repeat invitation unless a glowing review is forthcoming.

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I think this is only true of lesser-known bloggers. DPReview or Imaging Resource or the British Journal of Photography etc. are going to be invited to any camera PR event no matter what they write or do. Their audiences are too important for the camera companies to lose access to.

That said, there is of course a ton of PR schmoozing that goes on all the time -- picking up the tab for a nice lunch, little gift bags full of tchochtkes at every press event. If you write about cameras, you have to watch out for the subtle influence of all those small niceties.

Eamon Hickey said:

It's important to make distinctions about the reviewer sites -- a well-known publisher such as DPReview has a much, much more equal power relationship with the manufacturers.

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And just as a further note to my thesis: this site published just yesterday a long editorial arguing that an entire line of cameras made by the world's largest and most powerful camera company is flawed, unserious, and the product of short-sighted management.

DPReview clearly thinks they can survive as a publisher even after publishing that piece, which I think should tell you quite clearly that they do not see themselves as beholden to any manufacturer.

Eamon Hickey said:

Eamon Hickey said:

It's important to make distinctions about the reviewer sites -- a well-known publisher such as DPReview has a much, much more equal power relationship with the manufacturers.

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And just as a further note to my thesis: this site published just yesterday a long editorial arguing that an entire line of cameras made by the world's largest and most powerful camera company is flawed, unserious, and the product of short-sighted management.

DPReview clearly thinks they can survive as a publisher even after publishing that piece, which I think should tell you quite clearly that they do not see themselves as beholden to any manufacturer.

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/8416562015/opinion-canon-eos-m3-mirrorless

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You are assuming that Canon or any other company cares overmuch about anything DPReview says. I seriously doubt that DPReview has any significant influence over the market. Regarding the article, Canon may still have reservations about the future of mirrorless cameras. They are not going away but they may not dominate the market either. So far, no manufacturer seems to be making much profit selling mirrorless cameras in the current market. Time will tell about the future.

I am unable to provide a hands-on preview of either of these cameras since -- in keeping with our ethics policy -- I did not attend a four-day Sony junket earlier this month.


It is common for manufacturers to do this. If you don't go you get left out.

Leon Wittwer said:

You are assuming that Canon or any other company cares overmuch about anything DPReview says. I seriously doubt that DPReview has any significant influence over the market.

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Yes and no. DPR is probably the largest camera hardware review site on the net. Every camera mfg of any size probably have people reading here. It could be DPR's reviews or just general users comments.

That is not to say, what these people read will make any major difference but there will be input at some level. You have designers, engineers, accountants, management, etc. all sitting down at a meeting and what comes out of that meeting, might not reflect at all what is being discussed here. We simply can't see the big picture of any one company. Still, I feel there is some influence from places like this.

Leon Wittwer said:

Regarding the article, Canon may still have reservations about the future of mirrorless cameras. They are not going away but they may not dominate the market either. So far, no manufacturer seems to be making much profit selling mirrorless cameras in the current market. Time will tell about the future.

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Leon Wittwer said:

You are assuming that Canon or any other company cares overmuch about anything DPReview says.

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I did not assume that at all. You evidently didn't follow the logic of the discussion. I was not talking about what Canon thinks at all. I was making a point about whether a publisher like DPReview feels powerless to publish a story or review that a camera company would dislike.

Leon Wittwer said:

I seriously doubt that DPReview has any significant influence over the market.

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Depends entirely on how you define "significant". But I would certainly agree that no single publisher has a determining influence on the market.

Leon Wittwer said:

Regarding the article, Canon may still have reservations about the future of mirrorless cameras. They are not going away but they may not dominate the market either. So far, no manufacturer seems to be making much profit selling mirrorless cameras in the current market. Time will tell about the future.

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Yes, mirrorless is also, so far, profitless, and that is indeed almost certainly the reason why Canon has not yet made a big investment in it. But that's another discussion entirely.