The few details actually asserted -- "the partners have also been promised a special monthly print section themed to individual projects" -- sounds very much like native advertising. There's also an omission of details about how the paid editorial coverage would logistically work, e.g. how reporters/editors would be assigned stories, and what direct control, if any, the client would have over the news staff. So this basically sounds like native advertising and sponsored content, via special inserts. This is something that traditional media has done for awhile:
The other part of this is that paid editorial content -- i.e. news stories that are not disclosed as being ads -- would seem to violate the UK's advertising standards:
Perhaps the article has changed since the parent, read it, but there are many details asserted.
> promising them “money-can’t-buy” positive news and “favourable” comment coverage
> set to include “favourable” news coverage of the firms involved, with readers unable to differentiate between "news" that is paid-for and other commercially-branded content.
> Unbranded news stories, expected to be written by staff reporters – but paid for by the new commercial “partners” as part of the 2020 deal – have already been planned for inclusion in the paper’s news pages within a week of the project’s launch.
> paying partners were told that their company’s own planned communications and marketing strategies could be coordinated with the Standard’s news coverage.
> The Standard would trail positive “news” from the six 2020 partners, with other news organisations and media outlets expected to follow.
> Another executive was told the “money-can’t-buy” campaigns in the Standard aimed to create “news that will make news, but news that comes with a positive message.”
> According to one insider: “What was being offered was clear – theatrically constructed news, showing everything good being done."
I'm not sure what you mean by asserted, but the article does say this:
> the six partners have also been promised the Standard will carry “money-can’t-buy” positive news and “favourable” comment pieces that will appear to readers as routine, independently written editorial.
I agree that sounds like it would run afoul of the ASA
> positive news and “favourable” comment pieces that will appear to readers as routine, independently written editorial.
Also worth noting that the Evening Standard is apparently a free newspaper, similar to Metro New York, which doesn't exactly have high editorial standards.
But as the preceding paragraph in the story notes:
> An increasing number of British newspapers often carry “native advertising”, essentially paid-for commercials designed to look like independent editorial articles.
-- the point of "native advertising" is to appear to look like independent editorial. So it's still not clear that this "London 2020" is different than that. What would make it different is if there were more details about how this content would actually be published -- e.g. in the normal news section versus the special inserts, and/or via regular writers versus PR staff.
The Evening Standard wasn't a free paper until 2009, and it is essentially, historically, London's local paper. In terms of expected journalistic standards, its reputation would put it alongside traditional Fleet Street midmarket tabloids like the Mail or the Express, rather than a typical ad-led freesheet. Whether this kind of activity would be considered below the standards you would expect of those papers probably depends on your perception of the broader ethics of the British press.
The "money-can't-buy" quote is only around those three words, and I couldn't find the part where it says positive in the image of the slide. Did they post the other slides? While this doesn't look good, that line you quoted is misleading based on the information presented.
Well, presumably this is a leak from the Standard's own newsroom, so they'd be wary about releasing too many pictures lest their source be exposed, then fired.
The logistics of how this paid content gets written by the news staff is kind of important, even if it seems mundane. Let's assume that Google is indeed buying favorable coverage. Who writes it? Presumably it'd be the tech reporter, on someone on the business desk. Who tells this reporter to do it? In other words, is the reporter part of this conspiracy? Or just their editor? If the reporter is not part of this conspiracy, how is the reporter compelled to write a puff piece about Google if their (likely legitimate) excuse is that they're too busy working on actual stories for their beat? At some point, that reporter is going to get annoyed and suspicious if they are repeatedly asked to stop what they're doing to jump on a random puff piece.
How many stories does this deal buy? When are these stories assigned -- e.g. does Google have a year to assign X number of stories? Does this deal include the power to kill/subvert stories -- e.g. if a privacy fuckup becomes news, Google asserts the right to have prior review and make as many changes as it wants? Who is the contact person for this on Google's side? Presumably it wouldn't just be an advertising person, it'd have to be someone fairly experienced in PR.
This is a long way of getting to the core problem: this kind of thing requires a committed conspiracy, especially in the face of possible sanctions by the UK advertising authority. If it gets exposed, besides sanctions, Google risks a massive publicity blowup. Having several editors in the loop is problematic enough -- it gets even shakier when you add in reporters who may likely rebel.
As someone who has worked in a few newsrooms, I know I'm biased into thinking that journalists will do the "noble" thing and speak out. But I don't think I'm in the wrong in this kind of situation. Even in today's emaciated industry, journalists don't have much of a problem speaking up even if it means their jobs:
Note that it's not just adherence to principle at play -- journalists who make a brave public stand have a chance at getting hired by other outlets.
It's not that news outlets can't have systemic bias or subservience toward commercial interests. But that usually comes via pervasive influence over time from a publisher -- i.e. the fable of the frog not jumping out of a slowly heated pot of water.
One of the best known examples of a newspaper selling out that I can think of is the LA Times' 1999 arrangement with the Staples sports center to share revenue from an issue devoted to positive coverage of the center:
I don't think any more came of that. The cross-advertising in Murdoch papers is so routine it's a regular feature in Private Eye. The British press is largely a disaster area.
This is not only how news works. Of course there are hot political stories of the day but 90% of the business and tech news is PR driven.
PR agencies have ongoing relationships with journalists covering the specific areas and routinely pitch profile stories, 'innovation' stories, industry trend stories, third party research stories, topical stories that show the company they represent in good light.
And for the financial press there is a whole separate investor relations team with their own PR agencies. Similarly for government relations there are teams with their own lobbying agencies all actively engaging their targets including the media. There is nothing inherently unethical about this, though there is potential, but this is how the industry and media works.
This kind of thing has been going on forever, and doesn’t require a massive conspiracy. Google buys an ad campaign, one of the journalists publishes a fluff piece or drops a negative piece. I remember Matthew Wright talking about why he left the Daily Mirror over a Pizza Hut article.
A recent alleged example I can think of is Sharon Waxman, former NYT reporter who founded and runs The Wrap, claiming the paper was pressured to give up her 2004 investigation into Weinstein [0]:
> After intense pressure from Weinstein, which included having Matt Damon and Russell Crowe call me directly to vouch for Lombardo and unknown discussions well above my head at the Times, the story was gutted.
> I was told at the time that Weinstein had visited the newsroom in person to make his displeasure known. I knew he was a major advertiser in the Times, and that he was a powerful person overall.
However, this to me is another example of why the details of the conspiracy are important. First, the NYT editors involved deny her allegations:
Of course, that's the kind of denial you would expect from editors trying to cover their own asses. But the strongest evidence that Waxman may not have had anything akin to what the NYT won a Pulitzer this year for reporting is Waxman's own article:
It's a pretty lengthy article for what feels like insider baseball involving a little known entertainment official ("Miramax Sues Ex-Chief in Italy, Saying He Had 2 Jobs"), one that required her to spend time reporting in Italy, which is pretty good considering she was (in her own words) "a fairly new reporter" based in Los Angeles. The NYT is apparently ready to jump at Weinstein's word -- with that kind of familiarity/subservience toward Weinstein, how could editors even approve Waxman's proposed investigation (nevermind the travel expenses)?
The other thing against Waxman is the fact that she had ~8 years as the executive editor of her own Hollywood news site (The Wrap began in 2009) to pursue the investigation she claims was held. She did not. She appended an explanation to her initial article [0], in which she says "the moment had passed" because Miramax was mostly-defunct and she was too busy doing the work of raising money and running her own company. And also, Waxman writes, she did not hear of anything bad about Weinstein in the subsequent years and assumed he had reformed. It's possible had Waxman had more resources and faith from higher-ups, that she could've eventually uncovered the scandal. But it's clear she had nothing in 2004, or in the years since, that was a smoking gun about Weinstein's crimes -- she would not have sat on such a story otherwise.
I agree editorial scandal does not "require a massive conspiracy". David Simon famously alleged [1] (also known as the 5th season of "The Wire") that Baltimore Sun higher-ups looked the other way as a reporter published Pulitzer-bait fake stories. And there's of course the recent example of TMZ founder Harvey Levin's purported friendship with President Trump [2]. And there are numerous, more ambiguous cases in which an editor's/reporter's personal relationships may have influenced coverage [3] in subtle ways.
One of the most egregious examples -- in terms of obvious cause-and-effect of advertiser pressure, and the number of people involved -- is BuzzFeed's admission [4] it deleted several stories critical of advertisers because of advertisers' complaints to BuzzFeed's business team. But even in that egregious example, it's worth noting that it was exposed because BF felt compelled to do an internal investigation, which immediately got leaked to Gawker. And the examples of advertiser influence all involve ad-hoc deletions of articles that were outright critical. Even as influential as these advertisers were (and as flimsy as BF's editorial reputation was in 2015), advertisers still didn't have prior review, or other mechanisms to prevent bad press.
What's being alleged with The Evening Standard, by comparison, is a massive conspiracy. From the reporting in the submitted article, it sounds like there are meetings involving a good number of folks for ES's editorial and business side, as well as PR people from some of the most media savvy corporations. There's even a fancy PowerPoint presentation. I don't believe that corporations are above using their financial resources to bend journalism toward their ends. I just don't believe it would be done so unnecessarily out in the open and so brazenly.
I think counter-comment would have been more useful than down votes. Alas, broken by stubborness beyond golang generics. I think you have a point - my impression of Osborne is that he has little interest in anything beyond money.
http://www.tbrandstudio.com/
https://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/house-of-cards/the-asc...
The other part of this is that paid editorial content -- i.e. news stories that are not disclosed as being ads -- would seem to violate the UK's advertising standards:
https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/02.ht...
https://www.asa.org.uk/news/online-influencers-is-it-an-ad.h...