Because you are not allowed to have a good laugh in the media industry, journalism ethicists are upset with the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News for running advertisements promoting a fake airline, without disclosing that the ads were just parodies used for marketing purposes.
"It is clearly deception," says Bob Steele, the Nelson Poynter Scholar for Journalism Values at The Poynter Institute. "Newspapers should not be in the business of deception. I can’t imagine the Inquirer and Daily News would run fake ads from other companies."
But what if the ads were really funny? CONTINUED »
We at Jossip don't really care about sports, but we do think ESPN is doing awesome things for sports journalists. We talked to Rob King, the editor-in-chief of ESPN.com to talk about investing in writing, fan expectation and how his son wants an elevator for his birthday.
ESPN seems to be aggressive in pursuing top-notch journalists over the past few months. So what's up with that?
It's something that has been going on for a long time. If you look at some of the people who make decisions here, they come from newspapers, magazines like Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated. Vince Doria, who oversees our news coverage, is a longtime newspaper man. … It seems to be happening a condensed burst. Rick Reilly is a big enough name that it has generated more attention to what we're doing. But the truth of the matter is that we've long been involved with trying to find the best sports journalists we can. I'm happy recipient of that kind of attention myself. I was in newspapers for more than 20 years. I was working at the Philadelphia Inquirer when ESPN came and made me an offer I couldn't refuse. CONTINUED »
We know why Channel 3 hired Alycia Lane. It's because she's car-crack-up beautiful, a size 2, and the camera adores her. … Lane is famous for her bikini pics, 55 jackets in her closet, her boyfriends and breakups, inappropriate e-mails to married men, Dr. Phil confessions and, since last Sunday, her alleged shameful language and a felony charge for punching a New York City cop.
-Karen Heller, "In Local TV, Sadly, Looks Are Everything," Philadelphia Inquirer
Rich people read books. To find out about new books, they read book reviews. Advertisers want to reach rich people. They advertise next to book reviews. Book reviews are cheap to produce.
That’s our synopsis of the 800-word article in the Philadelphia Inquirer that defends the book review business model.
So why are newspapers cutting back on book reviews? Because people only have the attention span for the 30-word summary.
Philadelphia Media Holdings is in talks to drape the Philadelphia Inquirer-Daily News building with ads for Bee Movie, Jerry Seinfeld's new animated feature.
Philadelphia residents and journalist question the ethics behind such a plan. PMH CEO Brian Tierney insists that the newspaper isn’t interested in the plan for the money. He described the bee fee as "very little, minuscule, pennies."
So why would he want a 50-foot inflatable bee dangle off of his building?
"If we can do this, it'll be all over the local media and people will be talking about it" he said.
Except people are saying, “Draping your building in advertisements is somewhat ethically troubling, and to do it for a nominal fee is just plain stupid.”
