Back in May, the Daily Show did a freakin’ hilarious segment on how India’s newspapers are not only surviving, but, unlike their U.S. counterparts, they’re actually thriving.
Correspondent Jason Jones delved into this counterintuitive phenomenon and he discovered that, as long as you came up with the appropriate amount of cash, any individual could get any content published in any one of that country’s 93,000 newspapers – without the briefest mention of any sponsorship agreement.
To prove it could be done, Jones planted a $2,500 page two story in the Millennium Post under the banner, “Poll Shows US Number A-1 Star Jason Jones Does Best Indian Election Coverage.”
To make matters so much funnier, the piece was accompanied by two clearly “adjusted” photographs, one of which depicted Jones’ head thrust upon a shirtless, Vaseline-enhanced weightlifters body.
The opening paragraph read as follows:
“New most scientific poll displays that 97% of Indian voters trust award wanting fake journalist Jason Jones to deliver best Lok Sabha coverage in 2014. Known as the Bronto-from-Toronto, a six-time Mr. Canada entrant, Jones hopes India will help ‘exercise my mind as well as my temple of a body.’”
Jones went on to say that a previous stay at the Trump Taj Mahal had prepared him for the rigors of visiting the vast subcontinent.
Ironically, The Millennium Post’s motto is “No Half Truths,” but the truth is, if their readers haven’t seen at least one installment of the Daily Show, they’d have no point of reference from which to reveal the underlying satire.
But that could never happen here – right?
I’m not so sure anymore!
Because if you’ve very recently ventured over to the Elgin Courier-News website, you might have noticed that it’s undergone a complete makeover. And it does look pretty good. Upon a closer inspected, you may have also discerned that, under the left-hand “Latest Headlines” column, every fourth “story” is now sponsored content.
So today’s “headlines” include “The homeowner’s guide to specialty stone,” “Tips for getting through a long kitchen renovation,” “Recognizing the refined sophistication of Chrysler,” and “Making the most of your test drive.”
This “content” is semi-clearly marked as sponsored in very small, light print and the “story” itself has a “brought to you by” disclaimer in even smaller print directly under the headline. Otherwise, it looks just like any other article.
My reasonable guess is the that other Sun-Times suburban papers will soon follow suit.
Nobody wants the Courier to survive more than I do and I guarantee you that whatever staff still patrols Elgin had absolutely no say in these shenanigans. I loved my time with that paper, you know how I feel about Dave Gathman’s writing, and former Managing Editor Paul Harth was one of my favorite newsmen.
But some things are far worse than death and this kind of business model is certainly one of them. I realize that newspapers are facing oblivion, but sponsored content masquerading as headlines cannot possibly be the answer.
It’s sad to see what some downtown Chicago folks have done to a once proud paper.
Ironically, the online news websites have started doing this as well.