"The Price of Words" via NYTimes Sunday Mag

Posted by Donna M. Airoldi on May 15, 2010 at 9:06pm
From the May 16, 2010 Sunday New York Times Magazine: http://nyti.ms/bWhtpr

Not much new in here that journalists/freelancer writers didn't already know. What still makes me gasp though is the growing acceptance of the breakdown of the wall between editorial and advertising. The business side has always tried any means possible to cross over it in order to make a buck, but those on the writer/editor side seem to be giving in now too. Does anyone else believe that the desired quality consumer -- whether reading a print publication or an online article -- values objectivity and separation of the two sides? The only people I know who admit to reading articles labeled "Special Advertorial Section" or "Sponsored Content" are publishers/ad sales people.

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  • Ed Wetschler May 17, 2010 at 1:38am
    Donna, your posting is very timely: I'm at the SATW Editors Council meeting in Portland, Oregon, where we've been discussing the media revolution without anyone explicitly posing the question you've posed. I think that reluctance to fully engage in a talk about the ad-edit Berlin Wall coming down is, in itself, quite telling.

    Let me say something now that is very cynical, and I certainly invite you or anyone else to swat it down: Is it possible that the reason people don't read advertorial is not because they understand the ad-edit divide, but because the print is too small?
  • Northeast News May 16, 2010 at 3:20am
    Donna, I don't get the print NYTimes any more so it's a good thing you posted this.
  • Betty Austin-Ware May 15, 2010 at 9:12pm
    No more bouncers at the journalism club door (http://open.salon.com//blog/scott_rosenberg/2010/05/03/no_more_boun...)
    This is from Salon today:

    [I'm posting a lightly edited text of the talk I gave Friday at
    Stanford Law School's "Future of
    Journalism: Unpacking the Rhetoric" conference. As you will
    see, I took seriously the concept of unpacking the rhetoric, and
    tried to answer the questions on
    the event's agenda.]
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