Strengthened Connection

Cassidy Selep
cs743115@ohio.edu

Whenever I tell people that I am a strategic communication major, they always assume that I am in the School of Communication Studies. In reality, I am a student in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. I am then bombarded with questions as to why a major focused on public relations is in the journalism school. I sometimes struggle with the answer, but the connection between public relations and journalism is stronger than one might assume. In fact, the connection is only getting stronger.

The emergence of "native advertising" is a factor that strengthens the ties between the two studies. Native advertising is sponsored content on a news organization website that looks and reads as if it is a journalistic article. Native advertising can be seen in various forms.

Ava Sirrah's article on Media Shift highlights the partnership between The New York Times and Samsung to bring their readers the Daily 360. Michael Sebastian's article on Ad Age also highlighted the steps that news organization like The Atlantic and New Yorker have taken to inform their readers that an article is actually an advertisement.

In light of this new addition to the communication world, the American Society of Magazine Editors has released a set of guidelines for organizations to deal with native advertising. These guidelines recommend that native advertising uses a different font and format than the typical journalistic articles. It also recommends that the news organization put a disclaimer at the beginning of the article to alert the reader that it is an advertisement.

Photo courtesy of ASME

The idea of native advertising can be beneficial for both news organization and public relations firms. The news organization will receive revenue, and the public relations firm will receive press for their client. However, both organizations need to be careful. Ann Willets warns organizations about this in her article for the Public Relations Society of America.

News organizations need to be careful not to post too many native advertisements and risk losing their audience. Public relations firms need to be careful to be truthful to the public. It is also important that the reader be active in figuring out whether what they are reading is native advertising or not. The reader, however, should not be a detective; do not make this task difficult for the reader.