Brad Berens responds to a pair of recent blog posts about iMedia's editorial policy.

Explaining editorial decisions is like explaining jokes, which, as E. B. White famously observed, is like dissecting frogs: at the end of the process the editorial decision, joke and frog tend not to survive the explanation and dissection.

That being said, this week a pair of bloggers took iMedia to task for one of my editorial decisions, and so I'm writing today to dissect this particular frog.

The editorial decision in question was to run a terrific piece by WhenU CEO Bill Day about getting and keeping customer permission in the desktop applications section within marketing channels. The two bloggers objected to this because WhenU is currently the sponsor of our desktop applications section.

One of the bloggers is Susan Mernit of 5ive and The Media Center at the American Press Institute, and the other is Theresa Quintanilla of Qviews.

Here's what Susan Mernit had to say:

"iMedia Connection sells edit, forgets to mention it

"Going through the inbox this morning, I saw an iMedia blurb for a piece by WhenU's Bill Day. This is the former About.com Bill Day, now head of the former Gator.com. 'I want to read that,' I thought to myself, but I was kind of surprised to click into the page and see that the author's company -- WhenU -- was sponsoring the article.

"Guys, isn't that what they call an ad?

"Geeze, seems like buying an ad and disguising it as edit serves neither the client nor your brand.

"Yicky. Poor judgment call."

Theresa Quintanilla had a similar take:

"When Behavioral Marketing Makes Sense

"…As a database marketer I've always been more accepting than most people when it comes to advertisers tracking my behavior. Despite frequent complaints from my pc-health software, I had the Alexa toolbar installed for years. I kept thinking it would start serving me more relevant searches based on my past behavior, but it never happened.

"…Bill Day, a veteran of the internet who co-founded About.com… came to WhenU to help clean up its reputation. iMedia Connection features a column from him that looks like 'pay for play.' WhenU ads run all around it.

"That acknowledged -- I agree with everything he says. If you want to understand the beneficial role that permission-based, behavior-tracking advertising can play in your future... read this article."

The question today -- did iMedia sell a feature story to WhenU?

The answer is no.

We do not sell features. Nor did WhenU attempt to disguise an ad as a piece of editorial.

I invited Bill Day to contribute that terrific piece and met with him about it outside of the context of WhenU's sponsorship of the section. Sponsorships happen on the sales side of iMedia Communications. If editorial is church then sales is state, and the two are separate.

When Bill's piece arrived, it could have gone into a number of sections: industry issues, behavioral marketing in consumer strategies or its eventual home in desktop applications. Ultimately, in my opinion and in the opinion of the other folks I consulted, it fit best in desktop applications. We put content where the readers who are interested in it can most easily find it.

iMedia's mission is to advance interactive media and marketing (you can read the full text of our mission statement here), and as a part of that mission we work hard to get the best and brightest to share their thoughts with us.

I’m pleased to say that some of the best and brightest in the industry also happen to be iMedia sponsors. It would be a loss for iMedia's content if our sponsors couldn't contribute.

If WhenU sponsors the desktop applications section, then that should not prevent Bill Day -- a thought leader in interactive marketing on the desktop, among other subjects -- from writing about desktop applications. As the head of content for iMedia, whether or not WhenU is a sponsor is immaterial to my desire to have Bill writing for us. And, in fact, I first approached Bill to write for us when I met him in December of 2004, long before WhenU decided to sponsor the desktop applications section, and I hope that he will continue to write for us regardless of how long the WhenU sponsorship of the desktop applications section lasts.

On the flip side, if somebody -- anybody, even a sponsor -- submits a byline for our consideration and the article turns out to be a veiled or overt commercial for the contributor's company, then we don't run it.

By the way: If you take a look at Bill's piece today you'll see that there are no WhenU ads surrounding it. We took down the ads surrounding that particular piece of content at WhenU's request. They preferred to avoid the appearance of any possibility that WhenU had purchased a feature slot at iMedia Connection.

On to the next frog...

Brad Berens is the executive editor for iMedia Communications, Inc.