The Atlantic's Scientology Advertorial
magic maverick writes "The Atlantic recently ran an 'advertorial' for the 'Church of Scientology'. During this time, they filtered comments and removed negative comments. While they have since apologized, incisive.nu has an interesting run down of what they did wrong, from both a moral and business perspective."
It turns out these sponsored stories are commonplace, and a serious source of revenue: "Native ads are critical to The Atlantic’s livelihood. They are one element of digital advertising revenue, which in 2012 accounted for a striking 59 percent of the brand’s overall advertising revenue haul. Unclear just how much of the digital advertising revenue stems from sponsor content. We’re working on that."
This was recently mocked by both the Onion and Boing Boing. I think this is one of the first times that I'm less afraid of Cthulhu than the alternative. Actually, Cthulhu looks pretty damn reasonable when he wears a suit and a tie.
Pfft. If you were really with the CoS, you'd have made Slashdot remove the post.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.