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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCNN to present advertising as "real news"
From FAIR listserv--
CNN hopes its trustworthiness will get corporations to pay it to make news-like content that will tell advertisers stories.
CNN has announced the formation of a new unit that will not report the news. Instead, it will take money from corporations to produce content that resembles news but is actually PR designed to burnish its clients images.
The name CNN gives to this mercenary enterprise? Courageous.
Its hard to see whats particularly courageous about CNNs move, even if you see the destruction of journalistic boundaries as a heroic struggle. As a report about CNNs foray into news-like content on behalf of advertisers on a Wall Street Journal marketing blog (6/8/15) notes, news companies from the New York Times to BuzzFeed to the Wall Street Journal have units that create advertiser content.
Perhaps CNN anticipates courageously withstanding ethical criticism. As the Journals Steven Perlberg notes, These undertakings often raise church-and-state questions about the divide between the editorial and business sides of a companyunderstandably, since the point of so-called native advertising is to create advertising vehicles that feel like editorial work.
But CNNs parent company insists that this is not about fooling consumers:
This isnt about confusing editorial with advertising, said Dan Riess, executive vice president of integrated marketing and branded content at Turner. This is about telling advertisers stories telling similar stories but clearly labeling that and differentiating that.
Mr. Riess said CNNs trustworthiness when it comes to news was part of the reason Courageous would be attractive to advertisers.
This is CNN. Were not here to blur the lines, he said.
So advertisers will come to Courageous because CNNs trustworthiness and unwillingness to blur the lines will be transferred by viewers to advertising content that is similar to CNNs news but clearly label[ed] and differentiat[ed]. This is a business strategy, of course, that only works if the similarity outweighs the differentiation.
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/
JanMichael
(24,890 posts)Bullshit is bullshit even with perfume.
rickford66
(5,523 posts)So many local news programs use canned PR produced "news". You have to be brain dead not to notice. Not much different than our local newspaper being half USA Today PR stories.
eridani
(51,907 posts)rurallib
(62,416 posts)sure it is or you wouldn't do it.
Betting on the stupidity of Americans and no doubt winning
PSPS
(13,599 posts)This is the same ruse as those infomercials on radio using a talk radio format complete with "callers." There is no reson to do that if the intent wasn't to fool the gullible.
tymorial
(3,433 posts)6 corporations own 90% of the news media. Consider the behavior of the news media. They sensationalize any and every story that can possibly evoke an emotional response in the consumer. They exploit tragedy and victims. Supposed journalism has devolved to repeated the same story over and over again with different headlines to keep consumers coming back. Each page count means more ads seen. Each click generates revenue that these corps could only dream of "back in the day." Yahoo has been pushing paid advertising as "news" for a while now. "Wall Street is going to Crash" "Ron Paul predicts doom and destruction" bla bla bla... find how how you can avoid having your balls cut off by paying $49.99 for this new book. Sadly, I do not see a resolution to this problem. Too many people are slaves to their news feeds, not realizing they are being manipulated. The 4th estate is dead and has been for a long time.
Cheese Sandwich
(9,086 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Even the NYT, does the name Judith Miller ring a bell?
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)FlatBaroque
(3,160 posts)surely CNN should be allowed this new busniess venture.
Omaha Steve
(99,642 posts)Video: http://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2014/06/04/natpkg-china-tiananmen-square-cnn-coverage.cnn
Even CNN Headline turned into crap. I wish Ted had never sold it.
Now a days they are still looking for last years plane.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)Although, I have to say, ABC, NBC and CBS with their daily half hour pill-pushing "news" is almost as ridiculous and transparent in their propaganda.
The American traditional media no long delivers news, they deliver the narrow messaging of their corporate masters.
herding cats
(19,564 posts)It won't impact me directly since I don't go to CNN for my infotainment fix, but I'll have to bear the brunt of it down stream and it is a sad testimony as to how far low they've chosen to put their bar. They're not a site like Buzzfeed that doesn't have a solid clientele of mainstream advertisers, they already have that. I can only imagine the number of times this is going to lead to me having to tell my family, "no, that's not a news article, no matter where you linked to it from. It's an advertisement just like those double page ones in your magazine we talked about."
lpbk2713
(42,757 posts)They will have a studio audience that will "Oooh" and "Ahhh" on cue just as in infomercials.