Comments on: When is advertising, journalism? Sometimes

By: Re: When is advertising journalism? | fix journalism

Re: When is advertising journalism? | fix journalism — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:24:49 +0000

[...] response to the previous post, Brian Duggan, Donica Mensing and I began an interesting disucssion via email. The question: Is [...]

By: Brian Duggan

Brian Duggan — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:04:37 +0000

“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.

By: Donica Mensing

Donica Mensing — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:43:43 +0000

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.