131–140 of 261 posts
Looks like The Atlantic realized it had lost its marbles, and pulled this? I now get a 404, not only from the HN link, but also from the link on their site which still has the thumbnail of this propaganda piece: http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/scientology (If anybody has a cache, I'm mildly curious to see it...)
The Atlantic editorial team is not involved in the creation of this content. I imagine the editorial team are currently drinking a shit ton of whiskey praying that nobody associates them with this.
Haha ... I think you're probably correct, but I'll bet the writers who show up in the sidebar on the right need something a little stronger.
Sponsored stories are much better way to monetize content, especially for journalism industry. However, the issue is publishers should control what type of 'ads' should go live since they know their audience best. Editors should be in control of these type of ads rather than sales people. "Content Marketing" is relatively new in digital realm and I hope these type of mishaps will be avoided as industry matures.
OT but I felt like Frontline 'softballed' the piece on Michelle Rhee the other day. Not that I disagreed with the piece just left feeling that I did not get a critique - which is what I am used to from them.
Please consider writing a letter to the Editor (at this url: http://www.theatlantic.com/contact/ ). Here's what I wrote: Hello, I've been very disappointed by Atlantic's decision to run the Scientology promo article under sponsored content ( http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/scientology/archive/201... ). Despite the small label on top saying "Sponsored content" and a banner at the very bottom, which needs to be sc…
The scariest part - from the article, elected government officials lend credibility: The Church of Scientology opened its new National Affairs Office in Washington, D.C., in a ceremony led by David Miscavige. Joining him in this dedication were Members of U.S. Congress Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) and Danny Davis (D-IL); as well as Liz Gibson, Senior Program Manager, Federal Emergency Management…
She'll do anything to get on camera—I doubt she can even spell "Scientology."
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If you're going to have a knee-jerk reaction or post some other canned response, you could at least try to make it a little bit relevant.
EDIT: Wait a minute...it seems that was a top-level comment. Were you even replying at all?
This doesn't seem worth the brand damage it causes. I actually love the Economist "special advertising sections" about countries ("Mongolia: Open for Business", etc.). Those are clearly identified and also not damaging. Maybe Mongolia isn't worthy of 16-32 pages in the Economist on its own, but the content they do publish about it tends to be at least somewhat legitimate. Not sure if that's even possible to do about…
Without delving into the specifics of Scientology, I am reminded of a grellas quotation: "The most valuable asset of a lawyer is his reputation." This applies to some journalistic endeavors as well. In some cases, I seek out the thoughts of those whose facts are unreliable, because their opinions are interesting or novel. But just as often, I seek out long-form, descriptive pieces to learn what reliable people believ…