Actually Sam, I am now in agreement with you. I've just had a long, gracious, explanatory email from Simon Day, the commercial editorial director at The Spinoff about why they must run advertorial. I can see that it's a necessary evil, and as you say, much better than clickbait. I didn't recognise "(partnership)" within the story as delineating advertising from editorial content. I can see now, that that is what it is, though I would appreciate it to be marked more clearly as what it is, *advertorial*. Less spin, so to speak. But The Bulletin is still my go-to for my morning NZ news and I'm a grateful subscriber.
Am I missing something? I thought the Spinoff was excellent independent journalism, but lately I’ve been seeing more of what I’d call advertorial —like the puff piece today on Vodafone’s guy finding work-life balance. Is this what my subscription pays for? I find the mix of actual journalism and what is thinly disguised advertising disconcerting, and undermine credibility.
I don't love it, but they've got to pay the bills, and I prefer the advertorials to actual internet advertising, or to the spammy clickbait links that some of the major media websites give us. The partnership features are clearly labelled as such, and actually some of them are quite informative once you take into account the bias that the commercial partner will introduce.
Actually Sam, I am now in agreement with you. I've just had a long, gracious, explanatory email from Simon Day, the commercial editorial director at The Spinoff about why they must run advertorial. I can see that it's a necessary evil, and as you say, much better than clickbait. I didn't recognise "(partnership)" within the story as delineating advertising from editorial content. I can see now, that that is what it is, though I would appreciate it to be marked more clearly as what it is, *advertorial*. Less spin, so to speak. But The Bulletin is still my go-to for my morning NZ news and I'm a grateful subscriber.
Am I missing something? I thought the Spinoff was excellent independent journalism, but lately I’ve been seeing more of what I’d call advertorial —like the puff piece today on Vodafone’s guy finding work-life balance. Is this what my subscription pays for? I find the mix of actual journalism and what is thinly disguised advertising disconcerting, and undermine credibility.
I don't love it, but they've got to pay the bills, and I prefer the advertorials to actual internet advertising, or to the spammy clickbait links that some of the major media websites give us. The partnership features are clearly labelled as such, and actually some of them are quite informative once you take into account the bias that the commercial partner will introduce.