Jason Calacanis, publisher of the blog network Weblogs Inc, accuses Fark.com’s Drew Curtis of selling out the blogosphere by accepting payment for the links on Fark, which would otherwise seem to be pure editorial. Calacanis says he was told by a Fark ad sales person that editorial links cost $300-400.

This story broke a few days ago and I’ve been meaning to get to it earlier, but I’ve been busy. I’ve also been chewing over my reaction to it. On the one hand, I like Fark and I realize that he deserves some kind of revenue for the wonderful resource he’s created, and I’m sure that if he labeled the ads as ads, users would inevitably be less inclined to click on them.

But bottom line is Jason is right. THis kind of blatant editorial fraud is nothing but trouble for the blogosphere, not to mention for Fark itself at this point. AltaVista learned that lesson years ago when it pioneered the idea of selling link advertising on its search engine but without labeling them. Big user brouhaha.

Moreover, I might not have gotten so annoyed about it till I read in the Wired piece picking up on the whole controversy that Drew is claiming that Calacanis’s experience was “an isolated incident.” Now, I can’t prove this (unless push were to come to shove, and then I’d make a call), but trust me, that’s bullshit. I know a couple of viral marketing media buyers who told me more than a year ago that they were buying links on Fark, and other sites like it, too. This is no issolated incident, it’s a frickin’ industry niche.

And that is bad. Bad for blogging. What’s worse, is you have Jon Fine, an Advertising Age reporter, telling Wired that mixing advertising and editorial is not really a big deal: “Journalistic watchdogs get really (excited) about it,” he said. “But does the public give a shit? I don’t think so.”

That’s just great. As if the public doesn’t hate advertising and distrust media companies enough already.

TheJasonCalacanisWeblog: Fark.com sells their editorial