The Church of Scientology's full page advertorial, Chapter 17: "Journalism vs. Commerce"

Last week I wrote about the blurring line between art and commerce.

This week, let's discuss the blurring line between journalism and commerce.

Monday, The Atlantic ran an 'advertorial' (sigh) for The Church of Scientology (double sigh) which was a paid advertisement made to look exactly like The Atlantic's normal feature articles.

Yesterday, they removed the ad and issued an apology. Click the link, or here it is in full:

We screwed up. It shouldn't have taken a wave of constructive criticism -- but it has -- to alert us that we've made a mistake, possibly several mistakes. We now realize that as we explored new forms of digital advertising, we failed to update the policies that must govern the decisions we make along the way.  It's safe to say that we are thinking a lot more about these policies after running this ad than we did beforehand. In the meantime, we have decided to withdraw the ad until we figure all of this out.  We remain committed to and enthusiastic about innovation in digital advertising, but acknowledge--sheepishly--that we got ahead of ourselves.  We are sorry, and we're working very hard to put things right.   

The apology was, as public apologies these days often are, in response to a Twitter and Social Media firestorm where The Atlantic was taken to task, mocked, and ridiculed.

There is a great article at The Guardian that chronicles the entire story and goes a bit deeper.

I have a couple questions.

One: Would there been this much of an uproar if the product being 'advertorialized' (triple-sigh score!) wasn't Scientology?

If it was an advertisement for, say, how well Coca-Cola or Wal-Mart has been doing lately, would people have crapped their pants over it in the same manner? I'm voting no, they would not have.

Sure, the public was upset... but for a slightly different reason than I am.

Second question: Is this where journalism is headed, too? Advertising pays the bills. And increasingly, everything from bands to magazines to newspapers are all relying on the money from corporate advertisements just to stay afloat.

With advertising paying the bills, that means advertising will (in some cases) be able to call the shots. Or, at the very least, influence the shots.

For art, that is a death sentence. For Journalism... I shudder to think at the consequences.

But... I guess... I better get used to it, baby.

                                                                                      -NxB

Playing: Borderlands 2 by Gearbox Software 

Listening to:Anything by Pegboard Nerds (currently, 'Self Destruct')