Monday morning the following thrilling headline appeared on Atlantic.com: David Miscavige Leads Scientology to Milestone Year. By Monday night it was gone, and the excitement wasn’t about Miscavige’s feats.
The subhead of the story read, Under ecclesiastical leader David Miscavige, the Scientology religion expanded more in 2012 than in any 12 months of its 60-year history.
Church of Scientology in Arlöv, Sweden.
Above the headline was a small yellow-highlighted slug reading SPONSOR CONTENT.
The slug was easy to overlook – I know people who did – and the tediously laudatory and possibly misleading story that followed was a puzzle. What was it doing in the Atlantic? What was it doing anywhere but a Scientology publication?
There were comments, none of them asking these questions or others (is it accurate to call it expansion when membership is falling? Do you believe the stuff about the clams? Are you gonna sue me?). Odd, because Scientology has a few critics.
Littleneck clams
The Atlantic put out this statement:
Regarding an advertisement from the Church of Scientology that appeared on TheAtlantic.com on January 14:
We screwed up. It shouldn’t have taken a wave of constructive criticism — but it has — to alert us that we’ve made a mistake, possibly several mistakes. We now realize that as we explored new forms of digital advertising, we failed to update the policies that must govern the decisions we make along the way. It’s safe to say that we are thinking a lot more about these policies after running this ad than we did beforehand. In the meantime, we have decided to withdraw the ad until we figure all of this out. We remain committed to and enthusiastic about innovation in digital advertising, but acknowledge—sheepishly—that we got ahead of ourselves. We are sorry, and we’re working very hard to put things right.
That’s a good apology. It was fast. It took responsibility. It was backed by action. It indicated that they’ll take steps to keep it from happening again.
Anti-Scientology demonstration in Clearwater, Florida.
I would have liked it if they had given even the tiniest hint about what they did wrong. Which was violating the vital boundary between editorial and sales, sometimes referred to as church and state. Publications need to be honest – and explicit – about what’s paid advertising and what’s not.
They’re not the first to run advertorials. Some other online publications do it. Print was doing it for years before online, and they evolved a set of practices to handle it. It’s now called, oog, “native advertising.” One ability that online publications have is enabling and monitoring comments. The Atlantic had turned that responsibility over – sold it to – their advertiser, Scientology. Scientology made sure no critical comments appeared, just happy woohoos.
As Bloomberg Businessweek writer Jared Keller notes, Atlantic publisher Jay Lauf told Digiday last September that people shouldn’t worry about native ads crossing the line between editorial an advertising. “It’s saying, ‘You know what you’re interested in.’ It’s more respectful of the reader that way.”
Devoted to Literature, Art, and Politics, also Apologies
Actually, no. No no no. If we want ads, we can find them, somehow. What we go to publications for is the editing, the filtering, the fracking curating, for goodness’ sake. That’s what publications have to offer. They’re meant to find interesting stuff for us. Showing us puff pieces that belong only in religious newsletters isn’t respectful. And then letting the boosters run faked comment streams? The worst yet.
But sponsored comment and native ads do have the potential to bring true happiness, as the Onion and TechCrunch have shown. Indeed, it is only lack of time that prevents us from sponsoring our own story. New Website SorryWatch Takes Internet by Storm. Subhead: SorryWatch Charms Readers, Yokes Civility and Hilarity, Heralds Golden Era, Accepts PayPal.
