At the start of my professional career, I thought of public communications in three categories. Advertising, public relations and editorial. The goals of each were straightforward. “Buy my products”, ‘Think well of my company” and “Just the facts, no matter where they fall.” A more experienced, astute observer may have added propaganda to that list. More about that later.
Working full-time as a freelance writer, I’ve earned income from all three silos. Since most projects stayed within defined boundaries, I enjoyed the work and didn’t think too hard about how the reader responded to the writing.
Over time changes in journalism blurred those lines in a way that leads to deeper, philosophical questions about creating information for public consumption.
Long before the arrival of the Internet fundamentally disrupted journalism’s revenue model, the business was changing. In the 1990s, when tobacco manufacturers reduced budgets for advertising cigarettes in magazines, publishers suffered. No longer able to count on selling premium covers, center spreads and multiple brands in every issue, advertising income plummeted. Many magazines folded.
Another response cracked the traditional wall between editorial and sales. Magazines started selling advertorials (an earlier form of what is now called native advertising). Although the typeface and layout mirrored the magazines editorial product, the content was written to promote a single brand and it’s products. Advertorials often appeared next to that brand’s advertising to create a package of influence.
In the last decade, content marketing has become the “next best thing” in creating new business models for publishers. Like old school advertorials, content is presented to readers as credible, educational, service-oriented editorial. I’ve worked with several publishers to plan the topics covered in that content and hired other freelancers to produce that work. In every case, I’ve felt uneasy with those responsibilities. Hoping to assuage my ethical issues with presenting content written under the direction of a client to reinforce marketing messages, I pushed for layouts to clearly identify articles as “Sponsored”. In my experiences, the response was some form of “readers don’t care about that. They are looking for information and will be happy to read this content. We’re bringing them value.”
None of the content pieces I’ve written contained false information or broke any laws, instead the articles told just part of the story. The parts that brought in revenues that kept the company in business.
Other writers I know have shared these concerns, trying to balance the need for income against the awkward feeling of their work leading readers down a managed path. For some, accepting content assignments and the income (usually far more than paid for true editorial work) is easier because their names don’t appear as bylines. “It’s the readers’ responsibility to vet the source of this information” is a common justification.
In Jacques Ellul’s 1962 book, “Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes,” he writes, “the goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief.”
The word propaganda comes with soul-wrenching connotations. Comparing those techniques to today’s content marketing is certain to bring vociferous claims of overreach. Maybe that’s a question worthy of a grand debate.
Persuasion has an important place in society’s dialogue. We seek out information to support our point of view or refute an opposing position. We’re all better off if our information sources are transparent in their own positions.
Ellul offers sound advice. “The fact of knowing how to read is nothing, the whole point is knowing what to read.”