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Native advertising is when an organization creates a paid advertisement with the same look and feel as the platform they are promoting themselves on. The reason that they do this is so people click the link because it seems just as credible to the website and it grasps that target audience’s attention. As much as this sounds like a great way to capture an audience’s attention, it is not very ethical. This kind of advertising is not ethical is because it is designed to look like the editorial content on the platform they are advertising on. When this happens, it is really easy for a journalist to lose their credibility because of how deceptive these advertisements are. Native advertisements are being used a lot more these days because it is increasingly more difficult for advertisers to get a message through to their audiences, so this is the route they take.
Due to this common issue, the American Society of Magazine Editors has created harsher guidelines for magazine companies to follow. They are requiring that magazine companies make it clear when it is sponsored content and that the advertisement should not be the same font or have the same look as the platform they are advertising on. Besides these two guidelines, there is an abundance of other ones that were created in order to remain ethical and not risk losing credibility. In Michael Sebastian’s article, called ASME Releases Tighter Guidelines on Magazines’ Native Advertising, he interviewed the CEO of ASME, Sid Holt. Holt said, “we're articulating best practices for the industry for magazine editors. We do feel very strongly that a self-regulating industry should follow these guidelines." ASME has been a leading principal for magazine journalists across the United States for several years and magazine companies should be following these guidelines in order to remain up to the highest ethical standard in the industry. However, this does not mean that everyone is doing that.
Consumers are not aware if they can trust everything they reading these days. David Lazarus with the Los Angeles Times, talks about this issue in his column called, Column: Click here for actual journalism. He said that the experts say “there’s no stopping this trend — it’s too far along and there’s too much money at stake.” With a situation like this, there is often times a lot of money involved and that is ultimately what is becomes about. Though, people need to read everything they are seeing with precaution! Lazarus mentioned Valerie Folkes, a USC marketing professor in his column. Folkes urged people to remember that they should always assume that everything is brought to them by a sponsor. This piece of advice is so important to take because it is so easy to believe everything you are reading in today's day and age, especially when you have native advertisements that are designed to “fool you” and lure you in.
As a journalist, it is our job to be ethical. If you are a journalist, who works for an organization that does not clarify what advertisements are sponsored, you should speak up and say something. If you don’t speak up, you are putting your own credibility on the line. People are not being told the truth about the content they are seeing, and that is not okay.
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