Some bloggers who didn’t receive a laptop but wrote about it have had comments in their blogs from readers telling them to ‘keep the laptop’ – when they didn’t even get one in the first place. Many people are quick to just assume that because someone wrote about this story, they must have received one too. That’s clearly not always the case, but it has been very interesting to see this whole episode unfold on a global stage.

There’s no question that in the world of journalism, whether tech, automotive, travel or otherwise, journalists receive software and hardware to review. Most often, software is given for review, and not asked for back.

But hardware is almost always a very different story – hardware generally costs a lot more than software to produce, and with dozens, even hundreds of journalists, a company cannot afford to just give product away to all and sundry. After all, if that started happening, every journalist and blogger would permanently expect to be receiving lots of very expensive products to keep on a very regular basis. Even if they are huge companies like Microsoft, they still have profit margins to worry about, and naturally, their image.

After all, as fellow iTWire journalist Stan Beer pointed out, getting a free laptop is like getting an envelope stuffed with $2000 in cash. When you put it that way, it definitely puts the decision bloggers are making into an even starker light.

Still, journalists are often invited to travel to other countries to cover events and to meet people from the company inviting you to cover them in your publication. These are events and people you might not meet otherwise, as the company you work for doesn’t have the budget to send you otherwise. Journalists have always disclosed in this instance that they travelled to the event as a ‘guest of the company’.

I’ve read many such articles (and have written one or two myself, after travelling somewhere as a guest of a company), and while the announcements of what was launched are almost always included, there’s often a healthy dose of journalist cynicism thrown in for good measure to keep everyone on their toes.

After all, no good journalist will let their soul be purchased because they got a working trip to another country, and all the hassle that entails, from economy travel to early starts to little free time to other inconveniences. Overseas trips when travelling to events are definitely not holidays, I can assure you! You come back from these events with a pile of work to do, and you usually feel like you NEED a holiday to recover.

A credible, ethical journalist will not (or at the very least should not) sell his or her soul just because they got a free laptop. The question is whether or not one can be ethical receiving a free laptop. If it is disclosed fully and publicly, are you still an ethical journalist/blogger? Read onto the next page for more...