An ethical row has broken out over a corporate blog from Pepsi on The Guardian’s ScienceBlogs.  Several bloggers have resigned from the respected site after the company started a nutritional blog.   The Pepsi content, at the time, was not clearly marked as sponsored.

Did the site undermine its independent, impartial, science bloggers by giving them the same status as a corporate platform, which was essentially paid for?  This sparked a real storm in the science community.

Seed editor Adam Bly yesterday wrote a ‘confidential’ letter to contributors explaining the decision to host the controversial blog.  It was then leaked.  Bly explained corporate participation in the blog.  It has previously hosted blogs from Shell, Dow, Schering-Plough, GE, Invitrogen and L’Oreal.  He went to point out that the Pepsi posts were made by the company’s leading scientists and were entirely self-managed.

Yes, Pepsi had made a lot of money selling soft drinks and chips, but, according to Bly, they also recognised that ‘their future will be troublesome and time-limited without addressing the real and connected issues of obesity and under-nutrition in the world’. (ScienceBlogs.com 7/7)

Paul Raeburn on the Knight Science Journalism Tracker (7/7), talked of the ‘outrage’ felt among the site’s bloggerati.  In response to the Seed editor, he said: ‘For a guy who doesn’t work for Pepsi, or sit in on their corporate board meetings, Bly seems in an odd position to be vouching for Pepsi’s foresight and wisdom.  Or maybe Bly does sit in on those meetings–in which case, let’s hope for a leak on that, so we can report it’.

Maryn McKenna (7/7) posted an interesting comment on the first line of the Pepsi blog: “We have some exciting things planned for this project, including a video series that will begin with a look at the role the food industry plays in health issues.”  Words usually the preserve of PR departments – not scientists.

So, this will be an interesting issue to watch.  It’s another minefield where once again there are no hard and fast rules on engagement through social media or advertorial content.  Should blogs provide a paid-for corporate platform.  If they do, will it by default always compromise credibility and the impartiality of comment?