Charles Apple

Something happened Thursday that bothered me quite a bit. I’m curious to see what you folks out there in visual journalism land think about it.

It involves those “obtrusive A1 ads” and the ongoing convergence of advertising, editorial and what we’ve always called “advertorial,” as well as print and online.

It also brought out a number of strong feelings on my part — feelings I acknowledge are inconsistent and, perhaps, downright outdated.

Perhaps.

Anyway, the story began as I was…

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…Scrolling through the Newseum Thursday, when I found this big skyline promo atop the Rockford Register-Star, circulation 55,913:

It caught my eye because it was big, bold and green — quite a contrast on a day when the rest of the front page was extremely grey. And the little froggy logo? Yeah, that’s attractive.

I paused to read the copy block:

It didn’t really mean anything to me, so I shrugged and breezed on past it.

But then I came across to the Springfield State Journal Register, circulation 49,839 — also in Illinois and also owned by Gatehouse.

This one stopped me cold:

First of all, I thought: Man, what kind of printing presses do they have in Springfield? Reversing that much tiny text out of green — especially a green that appears to have a lot of red in it — would make printing  that page a registration nightmare.

But also, I thought it was strange that a story about a new internet-based venture would make page one. And be presented in such a powerful way on page one.

So naturally, I had to read every word. Which was when I found the subject — this RadarFrog — was a GateHouse company project.

Immediately, my visual journalism hackles rose. Y’know, this was a hell of a lot of A1 space to use for what I would call a big house ad.

Plus, an attached A1 story? And one that, to my eye, read more like an advertorial than editorial copy? Geez…

But the paper appeared quite serious in treating this as a legitimate A1 news story. A click on “More top stories” at the paper’s web site Thursday afternoon produced the result below. The RadarFrog story was the second one down:

An excerpt:

SJ-R President and Publisher Scott Bowers said the service gives shoppers another way to find local and national bargains on the Internet.

“This is a brand new business (for GateHouse Media),” Bowers said. “There was thought given to how can we engage local shoppers to find a one-stop shop.”

Users sign up for RadarFrog online. The shopper then can sort products and services a variety of different ways, print coupons and set up email alerts for specials. Users can even map locations where merchandise and services are available.

A basic membership to RadarFrog is free. A premium membership is $9.99 and yields more discounts and special offers.

I dunno. Seems like advertorial to me. And on page one, yet!

So I queried Brad Dennison, vice president of GateHouse’s news and interactive division. He replied:

When it comes to Page One, the way in which a newspaper promotes the new membership rewards program — which is very much a local platform — was completely up to them. Many of our papers are very enthusiastic about the kick off, and I think the various front page treatments today demonstrate that.

The papers you point to are two of the best in GateHouse and the country, and if they choose to utilize the most valuable real estate in the newspaper to bring the attention of the community to it, I not only support them, I think it’s a smart way to accomplish that goal.

I also spoke with Linda Grist-Cunningham today, editor of the Rockford Register Star. She says:

Nothing we did was out of the norm for us.

A number of local ventures have come and gone, over the years, some even offering online coupons and web-only deals. Her business reporters have covered them all. Likewise, her paper covers issues raised by the Register Star’s array of sister publications.

We market and promote them. And we write about them.

Readers are smart. As long as you don’t mix the two — as long as it’s transparent — readers will figure it out.

Our job is to share information and connect with people. The Register Star and rrstar.com – as well as the other products in the portfolio, so to speak — belong to the News Tower, not to the newsroom. To think the newsroom “owns” them, or to believe only a journalist can be ethical in how content is presented, is hubris.

For me, content includes news, information, advertising and promotion. If you do all four with credibility and transparency, you can successfully experiment with different ways of presenting that content. Visually, digitally, in print, online – someday in holograms.

I don’t get hung up in the traditional “thou shalt nots” as long as what we do does not mislead readers. That’s what I mean by transparency and credibility.

I also asked the editors of the Springfield paper for comment. I received no reply.

I did check behind Brad. Of the 90 dailies owned by GateHouse Media, only nine were represented in the Newseum Thursday. Of those nine, only these two — Rockford and Springfield — ran anything at all on page one about RadarFrog.

Click any of these to make them larger:

Top row:

• Peoria, Ill., Journal Star, circulation 65,320
• Rockford, Ill., Register Star, circulation 55,913
• The Quincy, Mass., Patriot Ledger, circulation 51,105

Second row:

• The Springfield, Ill., State Journal Register, circulation 49,839
• Utica, N.Y., Observer-Dispatch, circulation 39,293
• The Brockton, Mass., Enterprise, circulation 30,405

Third row:

• Norwich (Conn.) Bulletin, circulation 22,121
• The Fall River, Mass., Herald News, circulation 19,305
• The Galesburg, Ill., Register-Mail, circulation 13,344

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So I’m left with the nagging feeling that some kind of line has been crossed here. I’m troubled not so much by Rockford, perhaps, but I am especially by what Springfield did Thursday.

But as I’ve pondered this over the past 24 hours, I’ve also identified a number of holes in my logic — Some discrepancies in my own notions of A1 advertising and promotions, perhaps.

Or perhaps I’m guilty of thinking from an old-school, this-is-the-way-we’ve-always-done-it point of view. Man, I hate it when editors think that way. And especially when visual journalists do it.

Perhaps it’s the line that’s moved and not me.

So hear me out, please, and tell me what you think…

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Question No. 1: For years, newspapers have promoted inside editorial matter atop page one in the form of skyboxes, promos and refers. Did these two papers cross a line by promoting what might be advertorials?

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Question No. 2: If an advertiser were to approach our papers, request a banner ad across the top of A1 plus a story connected to it — and without an “advertisement” label on it — would we sell it to them?

I’ll remind you: These guys did run such an ad last year — with an “advertisement” label — and subsequently took a thrashing by staffers and much of the rest of the newspaper industry:

I think most of us would not sell something like this. For now.

Assuming this LAT front was a bad move, then, how is Thursday’s Springfield front significantly different from this?

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Question No. 3: If the Springfield page treatment does cross a line, then just where is that line in the first place?

Many newspapers have, in fact, promoted non-editorial matter above the fold of page one. Here are three examples from this past Sunday:

That third one promotes a contest — a promotional contest. That one bothers me more than the other two, but I’m not sure it’s because of the subject matter or because it’s ugly and awfully obtrusive.

Here’s an example of another promotional contest from last week — one that took up an even larger footprint on a weekday front:

That’s not editorial copy or a refer to editorial content. That’s essentially a house ad, refering to the contest details on page 16. I don’t have access to page 16 from the March 24 Daily News, but I suspect the contest material there is less editorial content and more like a house ad.

The first two examples — from Fort Lauderdale and Indianapolis — don’t bother me, but the second two do.

But other than size and attractiveness, how do any of these four — or Springfield — differ from an ethical point of view?

Is this, like Linda might say, a transparency issue? It is possible that all four of these samples and Springfield are transparent enough to readers?

Or are my hackles justified to be in their lofty perch?

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Question No. 4: Last year, I got all excited by the RevenueTwoPointZero project, headed up by Matt Mansfield and Alan Jacobson, which explored new ways of raising ad revenue online. [Read more about R2.0 here.]

So if our papers were to invest in any of the ideas like those of RevenueTwoPointZero, should we not expect them to promote them on page one?

Of course we should.

So, then, what’s wrong with these RadarFrog promos?

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Question No. 5: At a time when fewer people than ever before trust newspapers and journalists, is it wise to co-opt our front pages for advertisers — advertisers from both outside and inside our own companies?

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Those are my questions. Anyone care to help me grope around for some answers?

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Read the entire Springfield A1 story here.

Find a story here by Mark Briggs of the Lost Remote blog about GateHouse’s RadarFrog project.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 2nd, 2010 at 1:03 pm and is filed under News design, Visual ethics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.