This is not referring to the sections of a magazine that are marked “special advertising section”. No, this is a much more nefarious beast. When journalists write a piece and knowingly, or otherwise, participate in product placement( or even endorsement). To be honest I would have a hard time believing that the incidneces where this occurs are by mistake. Afterall (unlike most bloggers) writting and wordsmithing are a journalists stock-in-trade.
I recently came across an article in Forbes Magazine that is a perfect illustration of this type of journalism. And even better it is an article dealing with Science (see earlier rant).
This article: Never Say Die (June, 8 2009 pg 22-23)is about some research conducted by Dr. David Sinclair on the compound Resveratrol. The article spends the first half talking about the discovery of the proposed mechanism of action and how this mechanism may relate to different diseases. Now my comment has nothing to do with the thoughts or research of Dr. Sinclair, it is with the following types of statements.
“Proving that sirtuin-boosting [a proposed mechanism of action of resveratrol] can treat human disease will be up to GlaxoSmithkline.”
“Glaxo has concocted sirtuin boosters far more potent than resveratrol”
“But preliminary lab experiments suggest that sirtuins could have a role in everything from Alzheimer’s disease to colon cancer.”
The whole second half of the article is basically on giant forward looking statement and/or advertisement for GSK. Unlike regular advertisements it doesn’t state in the article that these are forward looking statements (I know it would be easy to infer that they are, but I have my doubts how the average reader would read this). Nor is it marked Special Advertising Section (see pg.83-89 – Newark!). No I will elect to call this style – Adverjournalism. I fear that this may be a very common happenstance in magazines in particular – though I have no proof.
Just saw this post in The Great Beyond – excellent example of tracking a press release and the sensationalism it may generate.
I “twittered” that Great Beyond post last night, Craig, as I thought it a good example of press release reflex disease, too. I don’t know what happened as my Twitter and/or time management skills aren’t up to tracking consequences – should probably have had a hashtag in there somewhere. But indeed, as you so rightly say, the distinction between editorial and advertising material needs to be clearly identified to the reader. (Eg “advertorial” copy such as you describe should be clearly labelled “Advertising feature” or similar.) Many scientific journals now require authors to state competing financial (or other) interests. Is this commonly required of journalists? I saw a correction on a US political newspaper blog (Time magazine blog I think) where the blog poster had gone back to make a correction that an article he or she had linked/quoted was by his/her spouse. That’s not quite the same thing, but I wonder if the same should or does apply to other interests in the world of journalism?
@Maxine – I would love to see more examples of the PRRD I thought it was great.
I imagine for general audience magazines such as Forbes it is difficult to “want” to draw the distinction between editorial and advertorial copy. To me (as a cynic) there will always be that potential competing financial interest in these types of stories since these magazines rely on print advertising from companies such as GSK (in this case) to support the magazine. Maybe this type of journalism is another example of why it is a good thing to pay page charges for scientific publications? Now I would like to know. . .Does the use of page charges allow for greater editorial flexibility?