Journalism by–and for–the Sponsors
From FAIR:
January 16, 2013
There was a pretty strong, immediate and almost entirely negative reaction to a recent article posted at the website of the Atlantic. The headline–"David Miscavige Leads Scientology to Milestone Year"–probably tipped readers that something was more than a little off.
But it wasn't an article, really; above the headline, in a yellow box, was the phrase "Sponsor Content." In this case, obviously, the sponsor was the Church of Scientology.
The Atlantic's decision rubbed plenty of people the wrong way, judging by the stream of can-you-believe-this Twitter comments. And that probably has something to do with both the prestige of the Atlantic and the dim view most people take of Scientology.
But aside from that, how shocking is this really? The Huffington Post regularly runs sponsored content on its home page–ads, in other words, that look just like the rest of the columns. The Forbes website, as the New York Post reported, runs "stories" very much like the Atlantic's:
in full: http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/01/16/journalism-by-and-for-the-sponsors/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=journalism-by-and-for-the-sponsors