I don't understand the "sponsored" content gambit, but I do recall reading various print magazines that had bundled content inside of them that looked very much like "real" articles but were basically sponsored ads. But I don't understand it. I would think that any ad that looks like your material fundamentally is misleading your readers by conflating your brand, your mission, your reputation with its own.
So I don't understand sponsored content, and I certainly don't understand making it look like regular, non-sponsored content.
Going further, the notion of allowing moderated and only favorable comments on your sponsored content is even more deceptive. Hey, but maybe not. Maybe more deceptive would be having the sponsored content that looks like your own material and then allowing all comments which might give even more credence to the mistaken impression the sponsored content is not sponsored.
So whatever, if the Atlantic wants to flush its reputation down, and that of James Fallows and so many other writers, hey, free country, free speech, there really is nothing to complain about.
So in that sense, what I find more dubious is this. The Atlantic taking sponsored content from GE, but refusing to take sponsored content from Scientology.
In what real, legal, sense, provable by things on the book, is Scientology different from GE that makes it okay for The Atlantic to take money from GE and not Scientology?
The FBI is conducting its first investigation into Scientology in 30 years, but apart from stories, in a sense doesn't that confirm Scientology basically runs as a legal business? And in the sense the US Government seems to recognize Scientology as a religion, why is it okay for The Atlantic to refuse content from Scientology? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology#Recognition_as_a_re...) Would it so easily refuse content from Catholic, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or Islamic organizations? (How many investigations of GE has the FBI performed in the past 30 years?)
Again, The Atlantic is responsible for their own content, I have no idea why they do this sponsored content in the first place, if they want to flush Ta-Nehisi Coates reputation down the toilet that's their right, maybe with Andrew Sullivan branching out they have much more limited dollars, but, ...
Hey I think they just compounded their initial stupid decision on sponsored content by caving to whomeever. I think they now look worse, not better. I think their response needs to be along the lines of no more sponsored content, or an explanation of what makes Scientology different.
Businesses such as the Atlantic are not obliged to take advertising from all comers. Showing up with your $50 or whatever does not guarantee you equal time in anybody's magazine. In fact, even if it did it would be ill-advised, if the brands are contradictory; you don't expect to see a Walmart ad in the New Yorker yet I'm sure Walmart can afford to run them there, likewise you don't see Louis Vuitton ads in PC Magazine. Both parties in the advertising relationship are free to choose and refuse each other, like any other contractual arrangement between people or corporations. This isn't a first-amendment issue.
I'd agree, except there have been cases like this:
> The judge, Paul A. Engelmayer of Federal District Court, ruled that the rejected ad was “not only protected speech — it is core political speech,” [...] As such, the judge held, the ad “is afforded the highest level of protection under the First Amendment.”
The difference is that The Atlantic is a private company. They aren't obligated to uphold the First Amendment. The MTA is a pseudo-government entity (a New York state public-benefit corporation[1], to be exact) and is (apparently) subject to the First Amendment.
> I don't understand the "sponsored" content gambit, but I do recall reading various print magazines that had bundled content inside of them that looked very much like "real" articles but were basically sponsored ads. But I don't understand it. I would think that any ad that looks like your material fundamentally is misleading your readers by conflating your brand, your mission, your reputation with its own.
Personally, I don't mind the print ads too much, although they are annoying. There are some physical mitigations that make them obvious - they are typeset differently, have a "special advertisement section" footer, and are sometimes printed on a different stock than the regular magazine. It is easy to detect where they begin and end.
The Atlantic's article has almost none of these features. The only way I knew that it was sponsored was because of HN, and I had to go back and see the "Sponsored" banner near the top. Still, "Sponsored" doesn't really mean much either.
The closest thing to being an magazine ad would be those full-screen things that sites like Forbes have, with a "continue to site" link at the top.
Pretty sure newspapers and magazines have been running advertorials since forever. If that's whoring, then it's not new. Anyway, the entire fabric of society is soaked with advertising, so who really cares?
It intentionally blurs the line between advertising and editorial. Publishers prerogative, but you can't maintain a blue ribbon content brand without the distinction.
Scientology the orginisation is not a protected class even if there followers are so the Atlantic is free to avoid doing business with them for any reason just like GE.
As to rejecting content advertisements are often blocked for all sorts of reasons. YouTube has a lot of funny adds that where pulled for bing in poor taste among other things. 'Sponged content' often faces strictor hurtles as people are far more likely to notice and be offended by it.
So I don't understand sponsored content, and I certainly don't understand making it look like regular, non-sponsored content.
Going further, the notion of allowing moderated and only favorable comments on your sponsored content is even more deceptive. Hey, but maybe not. Maybe more deceptive would be having the sponsored content that looks like your own material and then allowing all comments which might give even more credence to the mistaken impression the sponsored content is not sponsored.
So whatever, if the Atlantic wants to flush its reputation down, and that of James Fallows and so many other writers, hey, free country, free speech, there really is nothing to complain about.
So in that sense, what I find more dubious is this. The Atlantic taking sponsored content from GE, but refusing to take sponsored content from Scientology.
In what real, legal, sense, provable by things on the book, is Scientology different from GE that makes it okay for The Atlantic to take money from GE and not Scientology?
The FBI is conducting its first investigation into Scientology in 30 years, but apart from stories, in a sense doesn't that confirm Scientology basically runs as a legal business? And in the sense the US Government seems to recognize Scientology as a religion, why is it okay for The Atlantic to refuse content from Scientology? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology#Recognition_as_a_re...) Would it so easily refuse content from Catholic, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or Islamic organizations? (How many investigations of GE has the FBI performed in the past 30 years?)
Again, The Atlantic is responsible for their own content, I have no idea why they do this sponsored content in the first place, if they want to flush Ta-Nehisi Coates reputation down the toilet that's their right, maybe with Andrew Sullivan branching out they have much more limited dollars, but, ...
Hey I think they just compounded their initial stupid decision on sponsored content by caving to whomeever. I think they now look worse, not better. I think their response needs to be along the lines of no more sponsored content, or an explanation of what makes Scientology different.
All that said, to hell with Scientology.