Native Advertising and the Ethical Obligations that Should Apply

 Ben Firrell

bf652218@ohio.edu

    Some articles about certain companies or deals are actually sponsored by the company the article is about. These articles are known as native advertising. While it is clearly a good way for these companies to advertise, that isn't the question we are focusing on today. What we want to know is how transparency with our audience and the integrity of the publisher is affected as a result of this native ads. 

    As journalists, we have distinct obligations to our audience and our peers to ensure that the information that we are giving out is honest and unbiased. These native ads however, are clearly skewed in favor of the companies and products that they are about. Otherwise, the ad wouldn't be worth the company's time or money. In order to keep up with those aforementioned obligations, something has to change about the way that some publishers present their native ads.

    

(Source: MediaRadar Blog)

    Take this native ad above for example. This is a good example of native advertising because not only does the company and the publisher make money, but the New York Times definitively says that it is written by a person who works for Dell. They also disclaim that the article is paid for and sponsored by Dell. This helps to provide the readers clarification on whether it is actually biased advertising or an actual article, which provides the transparency between the media and the public that we as journalists are required to keep. This is especially thought about when the native advertising becomes too biased and "see through".

    However some argue that no matter how you disclaim that the article is native advertising, that it still violates some of the journalistic ethical codes that we are supposed to follow to help keep trust from the public. For instance, one print guideline from the ASME Guidelines states that you should never include a brand's logo on edit pages. Well, as you can see above in the native advertising by the Times, they have the Dell logo at the top of their page. My view is that they probably did this for more transparency reasons, but some people don't like the extra advertising that companies get from certain uses of logos and slogans. 

    Another example of native advertising is this MediaShift article that talks about native advertising and advocates for disclosure when using it. The article clearly states that it is by a guest writer and may not reflect the company's actual viewpoints. It also says that the ad is sponsored by Adobe, becoming further transparent that the article is somewhat native advertising.

    While I believe that there should definitely be some line in place to ensure the public gets the right information rather than a bunch of random words construed to get consumers to buy in to what they're advertising, there has to be more ways than just disclosure if the public is going to know exactly which articles they need to be focused on.