The Fall of the Wall

I sat in on an editorial meeting at my magazine internship yesterday. Like most publications, this one has recognized the importance of developing an online presence though Twitter, Facebook and blogging.

Its marketing department has likewise recognized the need to attract advertisers for its Web site.

After hashing out the details of who would blog about which topics, when to tweet, and how often to post items on Facebook, the editor and chief brought up a new advertising initiative that made everyone on the editorial staff uneasy: The marketing department's recent sale of "brand channels" on the publication's Web site.

Although such "advertorial" content is nothing new, its translation from print to the Web is troubling. Rather than a single paid ad made to look like editorial copy but produced by the advertiser, the new brand channels are to be populated with both marketing material from the companies and editorial content produced by the magazine's editorial staff.

For some of the companies, the magazine already has plenty of editorial content from past issues to fill the page. Smaller companies present a bigger problem: If we don't have enough old editorial copy to populate the page, we'll have to produce new content specifically for the brand channel.

The debate got heated: How should such content be labeled? How can editorial content be differentiated from straight advertising content? Can content produced specifically for a brand channel even be accurately labeled "editorial content"? Must all editorial content on the page be unequivocally positive? If it isn't, will advertisers have a legitimate right to insist that it be changed? If the initiative takes off, will writing advertorial content begin to detract from the production of content for the magazine itself? Will readers lose trust in us if they perceive that we are favoring companies who pay for brand channels?

The editor and chief acknowledged the danger inherent in setting such a precedent: "I'm very well aware of where this is headed, and eventually we're going to have to draw a line in the sand." However, he argued that, if carefully labeled, the advertorial content shouldn't pose a threat to the magazine's integrity.

One of the senior editors felt differently, insisting that he is "not at all comfortable" producing content that "we wouldn't have written if we weren't being paid to do it."

I'm sure that we aren't the only magazine facing this dilemma. Does this signify the beginning of the end for the "wall" between editorial content and advertising? Will it be possible to produce brand channel content that we can stand behind that also satisfies our advertisers? I hope so, but I think we'll have to wait for someone to draw that "line in the sand" to find out.