Pay-to-Play Content Becomes SOP in Media

The same day Mother Times published a piece by me about a new morning show coming to WTSP-Ch. 10 in which advertisers will pay to be featured, Advertising Age published the results of a poll conducted by PR Week indicating "that nearly half -- 48.9% -- of senior marketing executives admit they have paid to have commercial messages integrated into print and broadcast editorial content."

Certainly, that was my perception in researching Wednesday's story, which noted Gannett Corp. has made a particular priority of bringing these shows to its stations, creating such shows in St. Louis, Denver, Sacramento and Tulsa.

Less than three years ago, when Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz wrote about the same activity at WFLA-Ch. 8's Daytime, Sen. John McCain threatened Congressional action and trade publications mistakenly accused local media of ignoring the story.

The fact is, both Tribune TV critic Walt Belcher and I had done stories outlining WFLA's pay-to-play provisions in Daytime when it debuted, but no one seemed to care. TV executives, in particular, like to accuse me of nitpicking and unfairly criticizing their actions when these subjects come up -- as if it was the height of naivete to expect TV stations not to try confusing their viewers with barely-disguised infomercials.

As media fragments throughout the digital sphere, perhaps it is naive to expect TV stations won't work hard to wring every last dollar from their airwaves. But at a time when media and journalism crediblity is near rock-bottom levels, do viewers really need another reason to mistrust what they see onscreen?

Dave Chappelle Preview

I didn't have much room in today's Floridian article on Dave Chappelle to recount many of the jokes I saw during his opening night stand at the Tabernacle in Atlanta Saturday.

Which was just as well, because when I tried writing down his routine, I found that vocal inflection and profanity adds so much to his work, that many of his bits didn't make any sense when reproduced for a family newspaper.

Still, if you want a taste of what you might see during his shows tonight or Saturday -- or what you might be missing -- here's a few choice quotes.

"Everyone got mad at Bush for the war because he lied. Let me tell you something about this war. First of all, maybe its all of our faults. Yeah, I said that. Maybe Bush can't do something like that all by himself...(And) what if Bush came out and told us the truth....In 10 years we're broke. We have nothing. But I have a plan. We're going to rob Iraq...You want nice things, you want big cars, well this is how we pay for this s--- America. The whole country would be shocked...nobody wants to hear the truth."

"Two years ago, I used to make fun of celebrities, until I saw what they were actually going through. All that s--- that happens in the press, that is called corporate discipline...Look how they do Britney Spears. She's a mother for the first time in her life and the media's like, (in official-sounding voice) 'She's a bad mother. Look at her driving with the baby in her lap with no car seat.' So? Remember when we were kids? Our parents used to smoke in the car didn't have no f---ing seat belts on. All kinds of s---. Leave her the f--- alone."

On why legendary pimp Iceberg Slim perfectly captured how capitalism subjugates people: "A good pimp knows, there's a finite amount of s--- a woman can do before she loses her...mind. So a good pimp can read her miles. That sounds bad, but they do it to all of us. That's why so many of us work from nine of five. Because nine to six might kill a b

Comments

[tommyduncn]

"but no one seemed to care."A sad, but true commentary on the state of all sorts of affairs.You guys (hell, me too) can be the watchdogs you always have been. But if readers just shrug and move along, what have you accomplished?

[Anonymous]

is it just me, or does anyone else remember when debra schrils was a bookish, skinny, conservative weather person stuck on wfts on the early morning newscasts, and within a year or two blossomed into this busty, bubbley hottie of a mid-day "personality" on wfla?my, the wonders of modern medicine waking at a normal hour can do for a young woman!

[Eric Deggans]

Debra did undergo a bit of a transformation. Of course, she's no longer on the show, so i guess it wasn't enough of a transformation...I'm just enough of an idealist to believe that raising your voice for ethics matters -- regardless o whether you see much reaction or not. One amazing, frustrating, surprising and sometimes gratifying things about writing for newspapers is that your work moves through so many platforms, you can never tell who it might touch or what result you might bring.All you can do is find the courage to make the statement in the first place...

[formerly mr anonymous]

re pay-to-play:of course these advertorial shows are all over tv. but newspapers are far from pristine in their merging of advertising and editorial content.look closely at any 'special section' in almost any newspaper, including the sptimes and trib, and it will be obvious that lots of ads were sold based on content. i.e., weekly 'home' sections, weekly 'auto' sections, leisure sections filled with movie, music and 'massage' ads etc., 'local' sections loaded with 'local ads' for businesses about which both newspapers are always writing 'news stories' about their openings, closings etc.sometimes the tiny word 'advertising' will appear at the top of the fully paid-for content in some sections.same with the websites.the wsj is selling page 1 ads now and the nyt will soon sell metro front ads.print media cant get away from the realuity that it is first and foremost a vehicle for advertisers.

[Eric Deggans]

Yeah. Actually, I'm less concerned about advertising sold to sections -- it makes sense to put an ad or a nw condo devleopment in the homes section -- than i am about ads formatted to look like news stories and advertorial content published next to news stories.The Times used to be more strict about such content, but we have been running more ads in the a section which are formattedl iek news stories. Their look is deliberately made very different than the news content of the paper, and they are labelled as ads, but it is still borderline.And the column which we run with our Wheels section every week is advertiser-driven, and not labelled very well at all.BUT -- we don't have entire sections of the newspaper filled with advertorial content, like some newspapers. At least, not yet...

[Anonymous]

Eric, an interesting mix on the blog today ... "In the old days, we didn't need no steenkin' seatbelts" vs. "Won't somebody protect the Children in cyberspace."I'm not judging either way, I'm just noting it. I laugh at the way we wrap children in foam rubber before allowing them out of the house nowadays (mandatory bike helmets? huh? I must whacked my noggin on more concrete/car fenders/etc than wuz good for me along the way ... except for the weird blink patterns, I'm pretty much normal) And then I see the same folks who grew up with me (remember, mom and dad would stuff those pesky seat belts into the space behind the back seat to get 'em out of the way?) screechin' about Internet safety.Is all this Internet stuff any more dangerous than my friends and I paddling around on an ice berg in a frozen Yankee harbor in the dead of winter? Or is it the same Darwinism at work ... the knuckleheads fall through the ice, the rest of us learn to push the dog out there first ...--chase

[Eric Deggans]

Good point.I'm thinking its the sex angle that makes things a little different. Americans always get a little wacky when sex is involved, and MySpace is drenched in it. It's one thing to jump off a garage on a dare or throw flat soda cans at passing cars like frisbees (two kiddie pastimes of mine). It's another thing to think of children getting sexually assulted by somebody they thought was a peer, but who turned out to be a 40-year-old perv.Also, just because I posted Chappelle's rant, doesn't mean I agree with it. Frankly, I think Britney is a shitty mother....

[Anonymous]

Debra did undergo a bit of a transformation. Of course, she's no longer on the show, so i guess it wasn't enough of a transformationi'm told media general, penny pinchers that they are, was going to begin syndicating the show, schrils and her co-hosted wanted fair compensation.media general promptly didn't renew their contracts. i'm also told m-g had to go all the way to ottawa to find a replacement for schrils. guess the local climate for a canadian can overshadow the low pay.

[Anonymous]

Dude,Do you know whether Chappelle is straight or gay?