Ethical?

First, I have to say I am proud of myself at this moment. I am actually not procrastinating and am writing papers ahead of time instead of trying to finish an hour before they are due. As I was researching for my political communications class, I found an article about bloggers and social media consultants entitled "How Much Do Top Tier Bloggers and Social Media Consultants Get Paid? We Asked Them!" by Marshall Kirkpatrick. As I was reading this post, I started to wonder if a blogger is getting paid to write a post, how ethical is that?

I feel bloggers should not be paid for their opinions as this makes them less trustworthy and not as transparent. I could go on and on about this subject, but I don't think bloggers should get paid unless you are a social media consultant (which I kind of really want to do). I think if you're getting paid to blog you might run into an issue like Edelman and Wal-Mart, which could get me started on an entirely different rant.

On another note, how do you become a media consultant? I think this would be an awesome job, especially because I am very interested in this area of public relations. If anyone knows how I can make this into a career or if a graduate program exists for this area, please let me know!