Tag: Sponsored Content

Jessica Bennett went from being a reporter at Newsweek (among other outlets) to becoming the executive editor of the now-defunct Storyboard, “an independent journalistic platform hosted at Tumblr.” She talks to Ann Friedman about working at a “brand-affiliated publication”:

Consumers are getting smarter about traditional advertising and marketing, she adds, and some companies are taking the unorthodox approach of directly employing journalists—whose ideas and copy they don’t directly control—to cover their brand or community … For reporters and editors tired of layoffs and buyouts, these jobs offer a middle ground between journalism and copywriting, a way to take home a decent paycheck without feeling like you’ve sold out completely.

Whose copy they don’t control? Buzzfeed would never tolerate that. Despite the fact that many of the Storyboard pieces were published in other traditional journalistic outlets, she struggled with how her work was being perceived by others:

“There is a lot of crap journalism out there, so sometimes it bothers me when people get all high and mighty about branded content. I really think it’s the story, not where it comes from.” But it’s increasingly difficult to figure out where a story comes from. As sponsored journalistic content and branded advertorial and brand-affiliated independent publications proliferate, the lines are getting blurrier and blurrier. It might be helpful for media consumers to demand more up-front information on how a story was produced—who paid for it? And who signed off on its publication? The Storyboard editors never published a statement explaining their editorial independence or decision-making process, though Bennett says, “we probably should have.”

Here’s a reminder of why “sponsored content” should be anathema to a free and independent press: E.B. White’s letter to Xerox after the company sponsored content in a 1976 issue of Esquire:

A funded article is a tempting morsel for any publication—particularly for one that is having a hard time making ends meet. A funded assignment is a tempting dish for a writer, who may pocket a much larger fee than he is accustomed to getting. And sponsorship is attractive to the sponsor himself, who, for one reason or another, feels an urge to penetrate the editorial columns after being so long pent up in the advertising pages. These temptations are real, and if the barriers were to be let down I believe corruption and abuse would soon follow.

Not all corporations would approach subsidy in the immaculate way Xerox did or in the same spirit of benefaction. There are a thousand reasons for someone’s wishing to buy his way into print, many of them unpalatable, all of them to some degree self-serving. Buying and selling space in news columns could become a serious disease of the press. If it reached epidemic proportions, it could destroy the press. I don’t want IBM or the National Rifle Association providing me with a funded spectacular when I open my paper. I want to read what the editor and the publisher have managed to dig up on their own—and paid for out of the till. …

The funded article is not in itself evil, but it is the beginning of evil, and it is an invitation to evil. I hope the invitation will not again be extended, and, if extended, I hope it will be declined.

At the time, the NYT covered the uproar over the Xerox-sponsored content:

The article by Mr. [Harrison E.] Salisbury, former associate editor of The New York Times, provoked editorials around the country and protests from writers who feared that it would set a precedent for encroachment by advertisers into the traditionally independent editorial side of journalism. Under the arrangement, Xerox paid Esquire to commission Mr. Salisbury to write “Travels Through America,” a 23-page article that took six months to complete. Mr. Salisbury was paid $40,000 plus $15,000 in expenses. Esquire in turn received a contract for a $115,000 advertising package from Xerox for one year.

The agreement stipulated that Xerox would not interfere with or have any influence over the article, but would run full-page ads at the beginning and the end of the article. If the corporation did not like the essay, Esquire would be free to publish it, without returning Xerox’s money, but without identifying it with Xerox in any way. “It was an experimental idea and since the big corporations sponsor television specials and other cultural enterprises, I saw nothing wrong with it,” said Mr. Salisbury yesterday to Mr. White’s criticism. He added that “magazines are suffering from lack of funds to pay their writers. “I’ve had no bad feedback from the article and if it is done just like our arrangement, that’s fine,” he said. “It worked like a charm.”

The NYT is prepping a report on this phenomenon, which is now spreading like wildfire in online media and in danger of becoming the norm. It’s a rare moment when the press has covered this issue – perhaps because the NYT is one of the few media brands self-confident enough to take it on, without worrying it will need to go there in the near-future.

(Hat tip: Ernie Smith)

A reader tires of our comprehensive coverage of “enhanced advertorial techniques”:

I don’t usually write, but your rants on ad-sponsored content are REALLY getting tired (and the latest dig at The Atlantic in an unrelated article dealing with telepresence robots was a little childish). Please stop bashing other companies that aren’t doing as well as you are and that are forced to resort to advertising to make money.  There are great people at The Atlantic and David Bradley and Co. are doing their best to stay in business and generate the same excellent content provided by Fallows, Goldblog, and others.  Traditional ads don’t generate sufficient revenue for those companies.  What’s more, I don’t particularly care if I’m being marketed to and manipulated, because I’m getting their service for FREE.

All else equal, I’d gladly take The Atlantic‘s model, where I have to deal with ads, manipulative or otherwise, than yours, where I have to pay.

Of course, because I enjoy your blog so much, all else isn’t equal here, but the point stands that you’re doing well in your new system (at least from my perspective) because of you and your team and in SPITE of your model, not the other way around.

You’ve done remarkably well for yourself, which is the primary reason your model is working. Good for you, and I of course remain a devoted Dishhead. That said, I have been meaning to pay for your service since your model went pay-for, but this “holier-than-thou” attitude makes me feel like I’ll just be feeding this ego/arrogance and perpetuating this non-stop torrent of bitterness. The whole thing seems a little transparent and self-serving, and I think you’re better than this.

Bitter?

My one and only concern is that in an era when advertisers have publishers by the short and curlies, that we do not give away the village in order to keep it. It’s the crafty fusion of advertising and editorial content that troubles me – and that risks the integrity of the core content. If we really are going to merge advertizing and journalism in the coming years, as seems an increasingly popular idea, I think it’s worth resisting and asking some core questions. Not out of smugness. It’s far too soon to declare our venture as a success. But because there are some principles at stake here, important ethical ones, and they are not being aired in the rest of the media – because no one wants to undermine their future commercial viability.

So I’m doing what only a truly independent blog can: raising an issue the MSM cannot or won’t. And it isn’t childish to note a simple example of how the decline of trust between publisher and reader caused by sponsored content can affect an otherwise good piece. If your magazine is partly under-written by IBM and your cover-story is about IBM’s brilliant new computer, you are doing the writers and editors a disservice by the appearance of a conflict of interest.