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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 article is something, coming from a tech site that has blatantly posted advertisements disguised as stories, intentionally or not.
The only reason the atlantic caught shit was that it was that CoS is easy an hated target, product placement articles are nothing new or interesting.
Poor souls? At least a prostitute provides a valuable service, unlike that cult.
The Onion skewered the "sponsored content" concept nicely yesterday. Even sponsored content needs to meet editorial standards, maybe even more so since you are accepting compensation for allowing them to use your brand name to promote theirs.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
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.
Not a good analogy, because one may feel pity for two dying dogs.
You know what the most serious source of revenue for a publication is? Readership.
Piss off your readers, they'll go somewhere else for news.
If your readers go somewhere else, so will your advertisers.
If The Atlantic takes a major fiscal hit over this (which I certainly hope they do), they've got no one to blame but themselves.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
When was it that America tried to enforce justice?
Starting with slavery and moving on to the railroad monopolies, tammany hall, the Chicago political machine, union busting in the 1930's, the company towns of the coal mines, separate but equal and on and on and on. We do try in fits and starts to fix these things, but always the rich and privileged find ways to give themselves privileges and immunity that the average Joe is not entitled to. It is not just American history but world history that teaches us this. So, maybe we should stop being sad about a time that didn't exist and do something about it. Whether we vote with our money or in the ballot box or through protest it is up to us to change things and looking back on a better time that did not really exist will not get it done.
No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.
I'm not going to support people who, as part of their personal lie, take action and make up lies that harm others. I don't care how fucking good his movie may, or may not, be.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Really? Aliens? That can only be detected with your voodoo device? Is that the best he could come up with?
That it worked so well and suckered so many ... that may have been his point.
The problem with that is, somewhere, you are supporting someone of equal or greater drain on society. It's hard to be fully ethical about things 100% of the time, so while not supporting a film actor is one thing, you could be supporting Big Oil or an eeevil tech firm doing far worse. That said, the sooner this cult dies, the better.
Pfft. If you were really with the CoS, you'd have made Slashdot remove the post.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.