Anyone who visits a news website
will notice the “Sponsored Content” section that runs on nearly every page.
Usually, these appear on the bottom, or mixed in with links promoting real news
stories, so the difference between the two is often unclear. As a former
reporter and still a freelance editor, I find these ads particular offensive. For
about a year now I have been tracking sponsored content on such platforms as FoxNews, the NY Post, the Microsoft News Feed, — which gets picked up by other
media platforms — and many others (CNN’s sponsored content focuses more on
lifestyle- or business-related items and typically avoids the clickbait trap).
The same ads also turn up on the websites of local newspapers, such as my local
newspaper, The (Albany) Times Union. Though,
honestly, I haven’t had much use for the latter since the bird died.
Shake and Bait
Also known as “clickbait,” sponsored
content stories usually feature people in the headline photo who, as often as
not, are not actually discussed in the item. Additionally, 500- to 1,000-word
articles are often spread across 10-20 pages, or more, ergo the name clickbait.
These articles engage in such errors from bad grammar and incorrect birth
dates, to a curious trend in no longer referring to a celebrity’s spouse as
their wife or husband, regardless of their sexual orientation. As we can see in
this first example with The Big Bang’s
Jim Parsons who has a husband, but one will be hard-pressed to find a single
click bait ad that will refer to his spouse as such. One can surmise that they
do this to avoid offending the tender sensibilities of the homophobic; however,
they also curiously do with same with straight couples, such as Troy Aikman and
Wesley Snipes and their wives, also redesignated as “partners.” Twelve of the most
glaring examples are posted throughout this story (pithy comments by yours truly).
The problem with this is that
while the media claims the moral high-ground in regards to reporting the truth,
sponsored content revenue contributes a significant portion of the ad revenues.
According to a Oct. 4, 2017, Politifact
report, producing these ads can generate for their creators anywhere from
$1,000 to upwards of $40,000 a month. Real news publishers will pay sponsored
content publishers for the code to post these “articles” on their websites,
which in turn keep their readers on their websites, increase the publications’ hits,
and so allow them to base their advertising rates on the those numbers. The
more people who read, the more money they can charges for the ads.
The Times Union relies on such sponsored content, and indeed was recently
seen displaying two of the most egregious examples on their website (see below).
Without this paid advertiser content, The
Times Union would very likely have a much smaller staff, and it has already
seen significant cuts as the readership of the printed edition has dropped precipitously
in the past two decades.
The issue of sponsored content
and boycotts of media outlets, such as various shows on the FoxNews network,
are intertwined. Tucker Carlson’s and Laura Ingraham’s shows on Fox have
endured the loss of a lot of advertisers based on their content which often
veers towards hate speech. While on one hand, the news outlets will lay claim
to a moral and ethical directive to truth, they will also buy sponsored content
and all its lies to generate hits to their websites, and consequently increased
advertiser rates. So, while media publishers can opposed boycotts even of
content the personally oppose, they are increasingly opposed to advertiser
boycotts for one simple reason: It hurts their bottom line. No opinion is so
egregious that a publication should be boycotted and lose revenue, particularly
in an age of rapidly dropping profits. After all, why buy the NY Post or The
Times Union when we can read the stories online?
For what shall it profit a man .
. . ?
WAMC Northeast Public Radio’s The Media Project Show, show #1436, Dec. 23, 2018, capsulizes this
conundrum and reveals the desperation and fear publishers have of boycotts. WAMC’s
CEO Alan Chartock moderates a panel of commentators consisting of Albany Times Union Editor Rex Smith Barbara Lombardo,
Journalism Professor at the University at Albany, and former Executive Editor
of The Saratogian and The (Troy) Record and Daily Freeman Publisher Emeritus Ira
Fusfeld tackle the topic of advertiser boycotts of Tucker Carlson’s show
following negative comments about immigration. Smith and Fusfeld particularly are
outraged, not at Carlson’s comments, but rather that advertisers had the
temerity to exercise their First Amendment rights in not lending their
financial support to an odious cretin like Carlson. Indeed, throughout the
entire conversation they do not discuss a single disagreeable thing Carlson
said, presumably because they did not find what he said as disagreeable than
with businesses displaying a social conscience.
Fusfeld’s surprising response,
retelling what he would tell his salespeople when businesses refused to
advertise in his paper based on the content they ran, is: “You don’t advertise
in our paper because we’re nice guys. You advertise in our paper because we will
bring business to your door because, at that time, we were the most highly
circulated paper in the area and advertising in our paper works.” Fusfeld’s
proposition here is that high reader numbers mitigate any ethical dilemma a
business might have with in their ads supporting ideas to which they are
opposed. The publications or editorialists can be as morally repugnant as
possible, but as long as they bring in the readers/viewers then their advertising
support is justified.
By extension, this also justifies
advertising on such media platforms as InfoWars
while Alex Jones drummed up death threats to the parents of the Sandy Hook
school massacre after suggesting they are “crisis actors” and the incident
never took place. This may seem like an extreme example, but if the principle
applies to The (Troy) Record and Daily Freeman then it must also apply
to InfoWars. Fusfeld can’t have it
both ways. Personally, I find it an ethically dubious position, but it is the
standard line trotted out by the media today as they try to shore up lost
revenue, so Fusfeld is only expressing what most publishers, most editors, and
virtually all ad people are saying.
Barbara Lombardo, the professor,
is the only one of the three commentators to acknowledge the moral right of
businesses not to advertise, but also notes that papers no longer have the
revenue to absorb the loss of an advertiser, which leads us back to Fusfeld’s
dubious ethical position on the matter.
The Albany Times Union’s editor Rex Smith is clear in his opposition to
boycotts. “I don’t like the idea of advertiser boycotts based upon on content.”
Lombardo quickly notes, “But that is the only way to make your voice heard” and
asserts such a move is not censorship.
Smith concedes that is the only
way an advertiser can influence a media platform, but applies this standard
only to Fox and attempts to separate The
Times Union from outlets like FoxNews. Smith then tries to minimize the
impact and value of such boycotts, neatly forgetting how it buried Bill
O’Reilly. Boycotts have most certainly cut into Tucker Carlson’s and Laura
Ingraham’s ad revenue. Tucker lost at least 34 advertisers and Ingraham 27
advertisers, making Fox’s profit margin on those shrink significantly, if not
quite permanently. So, to sustain those programs as a matter of political
principle, funding must be shifted from other areas to cover the losses on these
shows. That being said, both programs get a lot of viewers, and, as Fusfeld and
Smith acknowledge, the number of readers/viewers is the real priority.
Smith echoes Fusfeld’s position that
when faced with content the public disagrees with the strategy is to convince
advertisers they shouldn’t engage in a boycott due to the platform’s content.
Well, a nice argument if we are only talking about reporting a popular local
politician’s corruption to the offense of his/her supporters, but what if the newspaper’s
website promotes a editorialist who gets a large audience, but nonetheless is a
demagogue who engages in racism, sexism, xenophobia, and hate speech?
Fusfeld follows up by recounting
when confronted by politicians who called for a boycott against his paper based
on something they disliked, Fusfeld says he told them, “You need to understand
that the people who you are hurting financially here are people who pay taxes
and live in this community.” The point Fusfeld makes is that in order for the
businesses to make money they must support opinions they find morally repulsive; elsewise, the paper’s employees will suffer financially. Frankly, it’s a line of reasoning
that can only be described as psychological blackmail.
With The Times Union specifically there seems to be a real disconnect
between its editor Rex Smith and its advertisers. When the Fuccillo Auto Group,
once a large Times Union advertiser,
pulled its ads, Smith notes how he wasn’t even aware of it until his
publisher, the Hearst Corporation, informed him. In fact, he sounds almost
proud he had to be told about it. How out-of-touch must an editor be that he
doesn’t even notice the absence of one of his largest advertisers until someone
from the corporate office tells him about it?
Money, Money, Money, Money . . . Money
All this ties into the topic of sponsored content because as you will see that some of the ads posted with this
article appeared on the Times Union’s
website. On one hand, Rex Smith, who is atypical of editors and publishers,
decries attempts to paint the media as promoting “fake news” and preaches about
his commitment to “reporting the truth” while also having his hand out to take
the money of sponsored content advertisers whose “stories” are misleading at
best, and outright lies at worst. The
Times Union does no fact-checking. They take the money, post the ads, and
at the same time tell us that advertiser boycotts based on content are ethically
wrong. Well, whatever helps you sleep at night. 
As for Aeolus 13 Umbra, there is
no danger of an advertiser boycott. Neither this blog nor my various YouTube
channels are monetized. What you get is passion, not profit — a lesson that the
news media is increasingly forgetting.
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