tompoland Pretty sure that we all agree that reviews from @DavecUK are rock solid. I still view/read reviews from others. I’m not as cynical as some and hopefully not as gullible at others (we probably all think that) but I can normally glean something useful from most reviews.
That pretty much mirrors my viewpoint. I don’t exactly base any buying decision on any single review, and I try to take each review, and reviewer, on merit. There are certainly reviewers whose work I find more informative and authoritative than others and for me, Dave’s reviews top that list. Why? Well, probably the level of depth and detail. I’d much rather see that than fancy and glitzy production values, seriously expensive camera gear or £1000+ micophones. As long as I can see what’s going on, and especially hear the audio without straining, the production values are high enough for me. The real value is in the content.
The “free stuff” is a concern, though. Having spent a couple of decades and more writing (and I mean, for paid-for printed publications) reviews for a living, I was always sent the product free BUT, the vast bulk of the time, it was then collected again, either by the publication for photography, or by the manufacturer to go to the next reviewer. I was paid for my work, either way, and also paid whether the reviews were good, bad or indifferent to the product. Not that manufacturers ever saw the reviews before publication.
The world was different in those days, of course. For a start, there were relatively few publications and a manufacturer “holding back product” because they didn’t like a review almost always hurt themselves more than the publications, who were big enough (often multinational) and would NOT give in to that kind of pressure or blackmail. Few individual influencers have that kind of market muscle these days, and are more subject to threats than was the case in my day.
It did mean I was free to say good, bad or indifferent things subject to ONE restriction …. if I say that, can I and/or the publication justify what we said, if we get sued? I had that chat with editors from time to time. It’s why I kept careful and detailed notes of every review and only said something I could justify in a court, if I had to. We were threatened with court action a time or two, but I talked through my process with the editor, who discussed it (I’m told) with their lawyers and each time the message to the threatener was “We stand by the review but if you wish to sue, see you in court”. Nobody ever did sue, at least, on any of my work.
With those publications, and I can only speak to those I worked for, our ‘contract’, as it were, was with the readers of the publication and THAT was where our duty lay - to represent their interests, either because they bought the publication, or indirectly because the (independently audited) subscriber and sales figures justified the advertising rates to advertisers. Also, very strong ‘chinese walls’ existed between editorial and advertising departments and not once in those years was I ever aware of influence from advertising, or of any substantive change in the copy I submitted. Minor changes to a sentence or two, or cutting a few words yeah, but nothing that changed the tone or conclusion of the review.
My ethos, as dictated by the publications, was always to be fair and to be sure to be justified. Nothing more, nothing less, and certainly not subject to pressure or threats from manufacturers. About the only way to ensure that these days is to BUY all review products retail, but there’s a problem there, too. If you rely on Youtube, for example, and you want maximum promotion of your channel, you need reviews to be up (at least for tech products) on day 1, i.e. as soon as the embargo lifts. If they aren’t, viewing figures will be MUCH lower than those that are, no matter the quality of the review. an that impacts channel growth, and earning ability. The only way to do day 0 reviews is if the product is supplied by the manufacturer. Which puts the power back in their hands.
A very large number of print publications have folded, and I’ve often seen comments on forums like “why buy a magazine if I can get the review free online?” The answer, of course, is because someone writing a review in their bedroom in their spare time (or when not in school) won’t have the breadth or depth of product knowledge, or the experience, of someone doing it for a living but that person doing it for a living has to be paid somehow.
The irony? A lot of those professional writers, on seeing magazines collapse, promptly turned from gamekeeper to poacher, and ended up as press or marketing managers at those same manufacturers, and were sending the product out to those “home-based” reviewers. I guess we could say the public gets the reviews they’re prepared to pay for!
