Friday, October 08, 2010
Journalism and commerce
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/oct/08/entrepreneurs-digital-media
While I absolutely agree with Marc Reeves that the Chinese wall between editorial and advertising has perhaps been overstated in the past — how does passing on an advertising lead compromise a paper’s editorial? — there has to be a clear distinction for all concerned between what is there with the readers as the key stakeholders (investigations, reviews) and those items there because advertisers have paid for them (adverts, advertorials, sponsored columns).
Why? Because without the reader being told this clearly he or she can’t decide how to judge the information supplied. Is it unbiased? Is the paper putting its reputation behind it? Can it be trusted?
Without that information the trust which is key to the relationship with readers can be damaged. And without that the whole relationship risks breaking down and the paper as a commercial exercise risks failure.
If there isn’t a clear distinction the commercial partner also risks reputational damage by being perceived to be behaving less than openly.
So it’s in everyone’s interests for the relationship between commercial partners and editorial to be clearly marked. Otherwise we all lose.
Labels: journalism advertising commerce entrepeneurialism
