Let’s give this guy a spot on the Pulitzer board!
Wemple frames Allen’s shilling as “native advertising,” an often-troublesome practice in which publications sell space for paid content that is designed to look like a staff-authored article. (One of the more infamous episodes involved a Scientology ad for the Atlantic that looked like a blog post.)
Playbook goes beyond the routine and wildly promiscuous use of native advertising. Indeed, the behavior Wemple documents would ordinarily amount to a scandal and a likely firing offense, except that it seems to be Allen’s essential job description. As Wemple points out, some of the advertisers are also Allen’s friends. And, of course, his sources also consist significantly of his friends.
The intermingling of media, business, and elected officials that is on gross display once a year during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and which Politico both covers and participates in with peerless enthusiasm, is Allen’s vision of how journalism is supposed to function normally.
I wonder how many journalism schools will invite him to speak this year.
A.
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Local news here shamelessly runs infomercials as news stories every few weeks.
Stories are on the line of, “Home healthcare is important. Joe Schmo, president of XYZ Home Healthcare, says they offer a full range of services which allow the sick and elderly to stay in their home instead of going to a nursing home. etc. etc. etc.
Or one I remember well was titled something about “How to buy presents for the most finicky recipient”. Story was along lines of “XYZ store on the downtown square is the perfect place to buy gifts for the most finicky person. They have a unique assortment of hard to find items with a range to fit most budgets. Hours are M-F…”
There’s a fine line between a news story and an advertisement – and I’d say they overshoot that line by many miles.