Newspapers Become Ad Agencies

In the days of print newspapers, ads were set off from regular content, often with a blue box marked by the word “advertisement.” The people who worked on the business side and who sold these advertisements would hit the streets rounding up business. Professional ad agencies would design the copy, and the newspapers would print it.

Not anymore. Newspapers now have their own in-house ad agencies, writing, designing, and tweaking their client’s message. As for those salespeople? Today they are more likely to be called “creative directors” or “content strategists” or “video producers”—often former journalists pitching ads to their own newsrooms a flight of stairs below.13

Among mainstream newspapers, the acknowledged leader in stealth advertising is the New York Times, which established T Brand Studio in 2014. Ad industry insiders lauded one of T Brand Studio’s first “stories,” “Women Inmates: Why the Male Model Doesn’t Work,” paid for by Netflix to promote the show Orange Is the New Black. Soon, all the big media players were in on the game. The Wall Street Journal has Custom Studios, with a staff of thirty-two.14 The BBC has StoryWorks, which uses “BBC’s creative excellence and rigorous editorial quality to help brands connect through beautifully crafted storytelling.”15 The Guardian has its “Branded Content from the Guardian” squad. CNN has Courageous, which “specializes in bold, culturally-relevant creative documentary-style premium storytelling that captivates audiences.”16 The Atlantic has its Re:think studio. What will they re:think up next?

Publishers contort themselves into pretzels trying to explain why all of this “premium storytelling” is kosher. An executive from Turner Broadcasting, CNN’s parent company, waxed poetic about upholding journalist ethics: “This isn’t about confusing editorial with advertising. . . . This is about telling advertisers’ stories—telling a similar story but clearly labeling and differentiating that. . . . This is CNN. We’re not here to blur the lines.”17 Responding to these overblown statements of faith, Janine Jackson of the media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting quipped: “Advertisers aren’t stupid. When they pay money for something they expect to get money in return . . . whether it’s called storytelling or content or co-branding. An ad is an ad is an ad.”18

Figure 9.7 Paid post appearing in the New York Times to promote the Netflix show Orange Is the New Black (https://www.nytimes.com/paidpost/netflix/women-inmates-separate-but-not-equal.html)