The lines between real news and promotion/advertising are blurring more and more each day.
These are tough times for all media, especially perhaps newspapers, which used to have a strict line between actual news stories and features that are published because they help promote advertisers.
Managers in newsrooms, both print and broadcast, try to keep the line between the two solid, but let me illustrate one place in Montgomery where the line has collapsed:
Wind Creek owns the Porch Creek Indians gambling facilities in the area. They rake in big dollars, and---because there is no "compact", i.e. agreement, between the tribe and the state---they pay no taxes.
The largest daily newspaper in Alabama is The Montgomery Advertiser, a Gannett-owned publication that, like virtually all papers and other media, is hungry for advertising dollars to support the work they do.
But there is little or no effort to separate the blatant Wind Creek promotion below from the actual real "news' in the paper:
Hey, I support the good work Wind Creek is doing...helping the community in lieu of the taxes they do not pay (through no fault of their own). And because they spend advertising dollars in the media, they have leverage to convince media to given them free "news" promotion.
I just hope the media will draw a clear, not crumbling, line between the "news" and promotion. There's a wall I hope will be built.
These are tough times for all media, especially perhaps newspapers, which used to have a strict line between actual news stories and features that are published because they help promote advertisers.
Managers in newsrooms, both print and broadcast, try to keep the line between the two solid, but let me illustrate one place in Montgomery where the line has collapsed:
Wind Creek owns the Porch Creek Indians gambling facilities in the area. They rake in big dollars, and---because there is no "compact", i.e. agreement, between the tribe and the state---they pay no taxes.
The largest daily newspaper in Alabama is The Montgomery Advertiser, a Gannett-owned publication that, like virtually all papers and other media, is hungry for advertising dollars to support the work they do.
But there is little or no effort to separate the blatant Wind Creek promotion below from the actual real "news' in the paper:
Hey, I support the good work Wind Creek is doing...helping the community in lieu of the taxes they do not pay (through no fault of their own). And because they spend advertising dollars in the media, they have leverage to convince media to given them free "news" promotion.
I just hope the media will draw a clear, not crumbling, line between the "news" and promotion. There's a wall I hope will be built.
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