This may be a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but the truth-challenged New York Times has attacked the Los Angeles Times for disguising advertisements as news stories.
One day after catching holy hell for disguising a front age ad for a new TV show as a news story, the LA Times did it again.
An ad in Sunday’s Calendar entertainment section ran alongside a four-page ad for a new movie called “The Soloist.” The four pages are designed to look like a news.
A Paramount Pictures spokesperson said the Times approached them with the idea. The complete advertising package included an online contest and promos that ran on KTLA, which is a Times sister company.
“You dress an ad up to look like editorial content precisely because you think it will make it more valuable,” said Geneva Overholser of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication. “Fundamentally, that’s an act of deception.”
This is shocking. No, not the deception on the part of the Los Angeles Times. Everyone knows that. What’s shocking is that Overholser seems surprised by it.
Source: New York Times
This post was last modified on April 15, 2009