In New York City, I have been meeting a lot of great women through the TotalBeauty network. While here, we discussed a New York Times article that implied that beauty bloggers are driven for the free products, which I found rather condescending. Rather than applaud the rise of beauty-related media on the web, the New York Times article implied that the women who blog for advertisement or network funds and/or free swag are somehow more profit-driven than the women who write for salaried pay and/or free swag at print magazines and newspapers. Meanwhile, many of us are qualified, well-educated professionals ourselves — bloggers like Tia Williams and Nadine Haobsh formerly worked for beauty magazines and have published books, while Christine at 15 Minute Beauty is a physician. And that’s just a few of us. Doing a piece on how much free swag online writers receive is as unkind and unprofessional as bloggers publishing how many beauty products and perks magazine writers and editors receive — why would you want to imply a bias that surely is not there amongst honest professionals? I am displeased with the piece, and I hope that the mainstream media is kinder, or at least more professional, with regard to bloggers in the future.