Advertisements that try to look like news may not be editorial content (they’re called “advertorials”), but if they’re mishandled, they can damage a newspaper’s credibility as quickly as unethical coverage.
Unlabeled advertorials can deceive readers. That’s a risk that no conscientious newspaper would take, particularly here in the unsettled aftermath of media scandals that have eroded journalism’s credibility.
The Star-Telegram was reminded of all this recently. Because policies were overlooked, a jewelry outlet’s full-page advertorial ad ran in all editions without proper labeling or bordering.
Worse, the ad filled Page 3A — historically the second front page of a newspaper and one of the most prized positions for advertisers.
Even worse, the ad looked convincingly like a news page — with a photograph, large headline (“Jewelry 101″) and a long “Special Report” by “Juan Carrot” wrapped around a large ad. Many readers were fooled, if only for a moment.
Infuriated, they called and e-mailed protests in which they bared their underlying uncertainty about the news media as well as their anger about feeling duped.
“The media has no ethics,” one reader said. “This is just another example of how you distort news.”
Another asked: “Have you lost all your journalistic integrity?”
Brad Hagstrom, a former journalist and the Star-Telegram’s retail advertising director, said the reaction was the heaviest and the harshest he’d seen in his 18-year advertising career.
“We just felt absolutely horrible,” he said. “That ad was the poster child for what not to do.”
Star-Telegram Publisher Wesley R. “Wes” Turner said the incident was “one of the most serious breaches of the people’s trust that I’ve seen” since he became publisher in 1997. “We were wrong, and we apologize.
“You never want to mislead the public,” he said. “I don’t blame the advertiser in this case. Advertisers are always looking for ways to connect with people. This customer wasn’t misrepresenting anything. He used advertorial to attract attention. The mistake was with the Star-Telegram.”
At this newspaper, he explained, there is an editing process in the advertising department, just as there is in the news operation, that’s designed to protect the paper’s credibility by protecting readers from questionable content.
“We reject advertising all the time,” Turner said. “For instance, we don’t run ads for envelope-stuffing or pyramid schemes. We try to filter out questionable content because we want to earn the people’s trust, just like our mission statement says — ‘To earn the people’s trust daily.’”
Reader trust is currency, and, as newspapers go, the Star-Telegram has lots of it, surveys tell us.
Unlabeled advertorial content will not be allowed to jeopardize that trust, Turner said. “There will be jobs lost the next time this happens. I don’t mind saying that.”
To make sure that staff members are on the same page with policies pertaining to advertorial content, re-education and retraining have been conducted. Policies also have been strengthened.
Here’s a look at key parts of them:
The Star-Telegram reserves the right to review any advertising that is typeset to resemble news content. Any advertising submitted in this style must, at a minimum, follow the criteria below to be considered for publication.
Effective Aug. 1, the advertisement must carry the word Advertisement in bold type — no less than 12-point instead of the former 8-point minimum — at the top and bottom of any ad up to two columns in width. For ads that are wider than two columns, the word Advertisement must be set once for each two-column width.
Type fonts that resemble the newspaper’s type style may not be used.
An advertisement may not use a news-style byline or dateline.
These guidelines are firmly in place like guideposts, pointing us in the right direction — toward trust and credibility.
