The kerfluffle over Federated Media's hamfisted attempt to obscure the line between advertising and editorial is neither trival, as Michael Arrington suggests, or some kind of of noble experiment in bringing advertisers "into the conversation," as John Batelle would have it in his downright laughable defense of the practice. All successful news publications, online and off, develop a trust relationship with their readers which is based on those readers' belief that what they are getting is the publication's best sense of the facts, unencumbered by deliberately obscured little things like advertising money. In this case, Federated Media pushed the line and the writers who agreed to be used in that manner deserve to lose credibility because of it.
That's why there exists in all trustworthy print publications what is generally referred to as a separation of "church and state.' And I can assure you that it is strictly enforced. Over the past 25 years, I have written and/or produced maybe 150 advertorials-those ugly little hybrid mixes of text and advertising-for Fortune, Forbes, and Business Week. Combined, I suspect they produced more than $100 million in ad revenue. This would make me a success story in most companies but the truth is I have never met a Forbes or Business Week editor. I know one editor at Fortune that I haven't seen or spoken to for 10 years and although some of my most successful "sections" appeared when John Huey was editor there, I met him only a couple of years ago because he rents the apartment next to mine. I'm not sure he even knows I'm one of the mercenary trolls who made him look like a hero although he did admit to another rep I know that there was "a lot of money to made in picking up garbage."
In publications that care about editorial integrity and regard it as their most valuable asset, ad salesmen do not speak to editors and vice versa. They don't take meetings together; they don't lunch together; their offices are deliberately separated. No self-respecting reporter ever set foot in an ad agency unless it was to interview someone for a story.
In print publications, advertorials are required to be clearly labeled "Advertisement" and they are written, produced, and designed separately from the magazine or newspaper itself. There are also strict rules for informing advertisers that what they are buying is advertising and not editorial.
This is how it should be or else there is no point in pretending there is something called journalism that can be trusted to put the reader's interests in truth, fairness and accuracy above all other considerations. Over time, this becomes a reputation and even, if I may be naive enough to suggest, a positive contribution to society. It's why I trust the reporting of the Wall Street Journal, for example, although I wouldn't have the opinion pages in my outhouse. It's why ad agencies don't lean on great publications to do squirrely things. It's why Rupert Murdoch must never, ever be allowed to own the Journal, or the NYT or the Washington Post.
Michael Arrington has to decide whether he wants to be an editor or a publisher because no one can effectively be both. And, I do know that if you produce a publication that a lot of people trust and want to read, advertisers will come-on your terms, not theirs.
As for Batelle and his fine line of bullshit about making advertisers part of the conversation, most readers are sophisticated enough to realize that the Microsofts and Ciscos of the world don't want to have a conversation; they want to sell them stuff, and that ad agencies like FM are simply doing what marketers do-pimping for their clients and trying to turn trusted writers and sources into endorsement bitches.
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