When is advertising, journalism? Sometimes
Author: Michael Higdon | 01.13.2010A lot of people in the hardcore journalism world don’t think advertising is journalism (it’s threatening) and many people don’t believe advertising should be in journalism schools. But I think advertising is journalism and belongs in J-schools.
Advertising can serve the same purposes and affect the same goals as journalism when done a certain way for a certain audience. Recently I’ve been thinking about our advertisements in the local Northern Nevada news products and how many of them could be considered community journalism.
Sometimes it’s hard to remember that advertisements in newspapers are content, not just space filler or paycheck writers. Ads feel flighty and brief, so how could they be journalism? Well in a local community, they still provide valuable information. Sure they’re paid for, but they’re still ethical, accurate, informational and honest. Some advertisements are even objective.
I also think you can fit ads into genres, such as news, entertainment, food & dining, sports (often these will overlap with others) and business. Below are some examples of ads I think meet some of these criteria.
This is an example of an objective food & dining ad. You’ll notice this ad states facts about the food item, the location of the restaurant. It lets you know you don’t need to leave town. But it doesn’t say they are the only one or the best one in town (which could be considered fact if it were checked thoroughly).
BTW, both ads have been published, that’s why I didn’t block the logos.
I would consider this a news ad. It’s informational, provides factually accurate information and makes you aware of place that can help you with a medical problem.
Ads are, however, not fair and balanced. They provide a single choice for items such as Memphis baked potatoes and skin cancer therapy. Of course, that’s not something you can really say for most news whether on purpose or because of reporter’s ignorance/time constraints. But much editorial content at least strives to be fair and balanced while advertising does not.
But I don’t think fair and balanced is really a criteria for journalism more generally. Advocacy journalism, a lot of broadcast journalism, community journalism, etc. do not really strive to be fair. There is right and wrong, there is objective truth and objective untruth. Fair does not include objective truth, it allows for subjective truth. Advertising, in pretty much all cases is subjective truth – it’s preference based. But so is most entertainment news, columns/editorials, listings (such as top 10s) and other items we publish in newspapers.
If objective truth, fairness and balance were the criteria for something being “journalism” than NEWS, hardcore repeatedly provable NEWS and sports scores would be the only thing considered journalism. Provable science would be more journalism than the A&E section of a newspaper.
Therefore, I believe advertising is legitimate journalism – when it is accurate and ethical – because it can help improve/enrich people’s lives with information. It can help people save money, or in the case of the cancer center or hospital advertisements it can probably save lives. Advertisements can make people aware of businesses and services that are not newsworthy too.
So what do you think? Is advertising, journalism?
One distinction between advertising and journalism is purpose. The purpose of an advertisement is to sell a product to benefit a particular individual or group or company. The purpose of journalism is to advocate for the public interest. The purpose is to enlighten, enliven, enrage or engage, period.
You could also argue the purpose of journalism is to help people develop a collective identity, to work together to solve public problems, to uncover public corruption, to develop a functioning community. Advertising is about explicitly selling a very specific product, belief, value, service.
Sometimes journalism acts like advertising and sometimes advertising acts like journalism. But I don’t think that makes them the same thing.
“Sometimes journalism acts like advertising and sometimes advertising acts like journalism. But I don’t think that makes them the same thing.”
I’ll second that.
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