Media

DJ Mag accused of corruption, magazine denies claims

By | Published on Thursday 16 August 2012

DJ Magazine

The latest controversy to hit dance music this summer comes in the form of allegations of corruption against DJ Mag. In a piece posted on Monday, the EDM Snob blog claimed to have uncovered evidence that the magazine allows DJs and producers to purchase positive editorial.

The blog describes itself as “a counterbalancing force to the commercial venture of EDM” acting against people “selling people the music without the culture”. In that guise, it says, it was given a series of leaked invoices issued to a selection of big name figures in dance and their associates. The information came up, it said, during an investigation into possible corruption within the annual DJ Mag Top 100 DJs poll voting system.

EDM Snob writes: “The issue came to our attention during our investigation into allegations of cheating in the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs poll. As a result of that investigation, an insider approached us with financial data revealing many cases in which the UK-based publication accepted large payments in exchange for feature articles about an artist, presenting these articles as news. We were able to match these payments with the resulting articles”.

But yesterday DJ Mag issued a statement refuting these allegations, saying: “In response to recent postings by EDM Snob, DJ Mag would like to clarify that the invoices that have been published are for legitimate advertising and CD covermount deals. This can easily be verified by checking the magazine issues mentioned. They are not ‘secret documents’ but are confidential company invoices and have been obtained without our consent”.

It continued: “This stunt simply looks like an attempt to drive traffic and interest in EDM Snob’s blog, and divert attention away from our ongoing investigation into cheating in this year’s poll. We view the obtaining of these invoices as a criminal matter and have contacted the police”.

Earlier this month, DJ Mag reported that it had discovered that someone on eBay’s Italian site was selling votes in the Top 100 DJs poll. This lead to an investigation of voting in the poll, which uncovered cheating, said the magazine. As a result, Swiss DJ Miss Diamond was disqualified.

DJ Mag MD Martin Carvell said: “This year, DJ Mag has discovered blatant cheating and several high-profile DJs are currently under investigation. Our methods of analysis are sophisticated but time consuming, and DJ Mag has to be absolutely sure that illegal methods have been used to acquire votes before evicting DJs from the poll”.



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