ADVERTORIALS: AN UNHOLY MARRIAGE

By: Scott Angus Guest Columnist Argues Credibility Is On the Line



Not too many years ago, news was news, ads were ads, and the two met
only where the news hole ended and the ad stack began.



Our journalism-school professors and newsroom mentors preached the
importance of separating news and ads. They told us that our
credibility was on the line, that advertising should never influence
or mix with news, that readers had to be able to distinguish between
unbiased information and paid content.



Most of us clung to that precept the same way we hung onto our
favorite pica poles. Few things were black and white in this
business, but the distinction between news and ads was and forever
would be.



Then came advertorials.



The name itself should have been a clue that we were headed for
trouble. It's a godawful, made-up word, and good journalists cringe
at the thought of bastardizing the language for a trend. Moreover,
the word brings advertising and editorial together in an unholy
alliance that should have made the ink in our veins boil.



But, like them or not, advertorials are here, and they aren't likely
to go away soon.



In some ways, distasteful as it is to admit, they have helped
newsrooms. Many advertorial topics are marginally newsworthy, at
best, and taking or keeping them out of the newsroom allows reporters
and editors to spend more time on legitimate topics. After all,
wouldn't we rather throw our limited resources at the latest city
hall scandal or an in-depth series on teen pregnancy than a special
section on the merits and methods of buying 'pre-owned' automobiles?



More important for newspapers - or their bottom lines, at least - is
that advertorials make money. Many advertisers like to exert control
over a page's or a section's content from top to bottom, cover to
cover. They like to write their own copy for advertorial stories or
at least know that their interests will be protected. They are more
likely to advertise on such pages or in such sections because they
believe their messages will be unfettered.



So given advertorials' prevalence, their benefits to newsrooms, and
the likelihood that they'll be around for a while, what's a principled journalist to do? Should we simply turn our backs on them and turn our
attention to the real news being covered by our newsrooms?



While that would be the easiest approach, it wouldn't be the wisest.
The line between news and ads may have blurred, but editorial and
advertising are still on opposite sides. We must ensure that the
line is not blatantly crossed, and we must do what we can to help
readers recognize the difference between the two.



Clearly, 'Paid Advertising'' labels are important elements in that
effort, as they have been for years. They should grace every page of
an advertorial in a position and type size prominent enough to make
them obvious to even the most casual scanner.



Headline and text fonts for advertorials should be significantly
different than those used for news. Sans-serif body fonts, in
particular, set advertising copy apart from news stories. Column
widths, photo positioning, and other elements can be used to further
separate advertorials from the formats of news pages.



Finally, many papers have taken to running disclaimers on the fronts
of their advertorial sections. They state clearly and directly that
the content is paid advertising and that the editorial side was not
involved in producing the sections. Some disclaimers even provide advertising-department phone numbers for readers with questions,
concerns, or complaints. That's a fine idea in the minds of editors
who have fielded complaints or requests for corrections of information
in advertorials.



No one with a sense of what really matters in our business can deny
the importance of a distinction between news and advertising. More and
more, it seems, advertorial sections and pages are being designed to
fool readers, to make them think that the content isn't bought and paid
for, that it has the value of fair and objective news coverage. It's a disturbing trend, and all of us should be vigilant in questioning or
opposing ad pages and sections that come anywhere close to crossing the
line.



After all, that line guards our credibility, and we must do all that we
can to protect what is left of it.







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Scott Angus is editor of The Janesville (Wis.) Gazette. He serves as
president of the Wisconsin Associated Press editors group.









(c) Copyright 2000, Editor & Publisher