FanPost

Interesting "ad controversy" involving the Daily Bruin frontpage

Some might say this is OT a little bit, but I find this very interesting given some of our recent discussions re. current state of traditional media we have had on BN and because it involves the student paper of our alma mater.

Not sure how many here were following the story but apparently there was a huge controversy last week on campus involving a frontpage ad the Daily Bruin ran. Apparently the paper ran a "wrap advertisement" which entailed basically creating a make believe frontpage. Via the blog - Innovation In College Media - this is how the DB fronpage looks:

Realfront_medium

via www.collegemediainnovation.org

And this is how it looked based on an ad buy from Haagen-Dazs ice cream:

Fakefront_medium

via www.collegemediainnovation.org

Apparently the DB student editors were not happy:

Many of us volunteered to forfeit our pay in order to ensure that the ad would not run, but because some of our staff members could not afford to use their paychecks to make a statement, we have been forced to go along quietly.

The reality of our financial situation is grim, and the fact of the matter is that we would have been forced to cut thousands of dollars from an ever-tightening budget if we had not run this advertisement.

We were forced to make a decision we find distasteful at best – and dishonest and unethical at worst – because of the ever-present and unrelenting reality of the economy and the downturn of the journalism industry.

Much of our staff, the members of this board especially, are invested in the Daily Bruin and the practice of journalism on a personal level, and nothing pains us more than to see the cover and name of our beloved publication sullied for the sake of survival.

And this editors note was posted on "the real front page":

Today’s Daily Bruin was wrapped in an advertisement specifically designed by a clever marketing department to fool you into thinking – if only for a few seconds – that my staff wrote the content that appeared on the front page.

If you’re reading this, you have discovered our real front page, fully educated about the plight of the honey bee, and I’m glad you are taking the time to read our newspaper. I want our readership and our community to know that there will not be another advertisement like it for the rest of the year. We will not be selling these kinds of ads as long as I remain the editor of this newspaper – which is at least for another nine weeks. Many on my staff were vehemently opposed to this ad for a variety of reasons. Mostly, though, they were upset and concerned that our front-page news content was displaced, and that it was displaced by an advertisement designed to mislead our readers.

Bryan, who flagged the story in Innovation in College Media wasn't impressed:

Look, it’s one thing to place an ad around your content. It’s one thing to think up new ways to make money on innovative marketing ideas. Heck, I even applauded when the New York Times started running front page ads!

But this is just wrong. Shame on the marketers for concocting this sad little ploy to trade on the tradition of a 90-year-old journalistic enterprise, and shame on whoever it was who forced the issue to trade that journalistic tradition for a few pieces of gold.

In an age when newspapers are fighting for their lives and the credibility of the news industry is not that great, this type of "advertorial" is not a step in the right direction.

But here was the pov from the advertises perspective from Al Tompkins of Poynter Online:

If I were the advertiser, I would be steamed. Haagen-Dazs needlessly has been cast in a negative light. The advertiser did nothing wrong and shouldn't be thrown under the bus for promoting a product just because the newspaper staff is having a tinge of conscience.

As for me, I am somewhat amused by the controversy. I am not sure where I fall in this argument. I think a UCLA student should be smart enough to figure out the difference between real stories on frontpage v. paid advertisement. No?

What do you all think?

GO BRUINS.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

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