Are you following the deal over The Atlantic running a big advertorial by the Church of Scientology, then taking it down about 12 hours later, after lots of criticism? I was not able to read the Scientology advertorial — which was clearly labeled as such, it appears — but in principle, I can’t see what the big deal is. What did The Atlantic do wrong? I think the Church of Scientology is a menacing freakshow cult, but why is it off-limits for them to buy an online ad in a magazine? What am I missing here? The Atlantic has a right to set its own parameters for the advertising it accepts, but it is not clear to me why an ad purchased by the Church of Scientology is so obviously objectionable that it must not be allowed to appear. Was the content offensive? What’s going on here? Help me out.
Atlantic & Scientology: What Did They Do Wrong?
25 Responses to Atlantic & Scientology: What Did They Do Wrong?
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Matt in TX says:
I’d say that what’s going on here is that it made The Atlantic look so desperate, so holding-on-by-a-thread, so unread that it was hurting the magazine’s image and was going to hurt it more the longer the advertising stayed up. Taking a “sponsored content” fake advertisement from the Church of Scientology just seems much more desperate than accepting ads from car or insurance companies. It gives The Atlantic the stench of impending death.
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It was a full-page propaganda article, with laudatory comments that must have been carefully selected from a pile of criticisms.
But that’s kind of beside the point. I have no problem with insisting that publications should be selective about who they offer advertising space to. The Church of Scientology is, as you say, a cultish organisation that draws in and indoctrinates the vulnerable. Actively abetting this process is immoral.
Still – Boing Boing’s response is funny.
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Larry says:
I think the problem was not that it was an ad, but that it was masquerading as content. It appeared as any other article from the Atlantic columnists, but for a “Sponsored” tag.
(BTW, did you see that Wendell Berry expounded on his gay marriage support the other day? It’s on the APBNews [Assoc. Baptist Press] site.)
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JeffInOhio says:
I won’t comment on the use of advertorials other then in a time of shrinking revenue, I suppose every site needs to find the money where they can.
It does appear that a few of the writers were taken aback as they felt it impacted the Atlantic “brand” and was an attempt by the CoS to get ahead of the upcoming Lawrence Wright book. See Coates:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/a-word-on-our-bad-reputation/267197/As a frequenter of the Atlantic (and lurker of TAC) the issue for me was the preemptive moderation of the comments section.
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EngineerScotty says:
What Larry said; the “advertorial” was typeset and formatted to appear just like Atlantic‘s editorial content.
Of course, where the ethical boundaries in advertising are has long depended on the medium. Print has generally had a longstanding practice of making ads visually distinguishable from content; and many online publications (and the more reputable search engines) do so as well. “Product placement” in TV and movies is commonplace, even though it is often regarded as ethically dubious.
OTOH, twitter annoys the hell out of me with their “sponsored links” (ads that appear intermingled with your newsfeed–at least you can dismiss them once you have gotten rid of them), and it is still a common practice on radio for on-air hosts to read advertisements and mix it in with their usual banter (indeed, that was the original practice prior to pre-recorded ads).
But remember, folks. If you don’t pay for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product.
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Zathras says:
check out this note on the comment policy for this advertorial:
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2013/01/the-atlanticis-resort-to-advertorials-ctd.html
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jaybird says:
I read it last night, before they took it down, but the really amazing thing about it were all the sockpuppet/astroturf comments from probably the same poor, overworked person in the Scientology social-networking/p.r. department. Hilariously inept and obviously fake enthusiasm along the lines of: ” I’m-not-a-scientologist-but-it-sounds-really-interesting! Where-can-I-learn-more?!?!”
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GLRiley says:
Scientology does not play well with others; it does not accept any criticism, and abides by no norms when dealing with enemies (as encoded in the Fair Play doctrine). As a result, everybody dislikes them and considers Scientology a threat, so Scientology is little tolerated.
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strech says:
There’s a link to the cached piece in the boingboing post BenSix linked to; even taking a completely laissez-faire attitude towards buying ad space (which in this case I wouldn’t, given the nature of the ad), there are some issues I see -
1) It was presented with just a couple small “Sponsored Content” banners, looking like an Atlantic article.
2) It was made in cooperation with Atlantic staffers:
, Native Solutions creates ad programs that have the look and feel of The Atlantic’s content …. Lauf has a 15-person creative team that helps brands create content and develop distribution strategies
(from an article on the ad program last year).
3) They moderated comments heavily (or gave Scientology staffers the power to do so), allowing nothing but sycophantic pro-Scientology comments but giving no indication that they were moderating like that.
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While the misdeeds of The Atlantic are being discussed, by the way, I was disturbed by the blitheness with which its correspondent in Syria informed us that he had conducted an interview with a prisoner as he was being beaten.
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md says:
Because The Atlantic is officially an un-official outlet for the Federal government leaks and they wanted to maintain separation of Church and State?
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Laser says:
Its not as bad as the one the ran sponosred by the Chinese gvernment a few months back. That’s the only entity on the planet that my be worse that the Church of Scientology. Plus they’ve already have perfectly servicable propagandist on staff in James Fallows anyway.
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Tex Tradd says:
Mr. Dreher, the big deal is that because of the format, it was really easy to think it was just an unusually glowing article about Scientology. Readers could very easily forget or not realize it was by Scientology, so it seemed like journalism, not an ad.
When I figured out that I was reading an ad, not an article, I was really vexed. I consider(ed) the Atlantic to be at the very apex of high standards and professionalism. I think of it as making the effort to include more diverse views than the New York Times (though these differences nonetheless reflect variance among Acela-people centrism and urbanoid Ivy League consensus-headism).
Oh, the Atlantic totally has egg on their face today. But they’ll get over this, and regain their august reputation, I predict.
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BenSix, thanks for that link. I agree that the nonchalant tone in that piece is dreadful–especially given the interviewer’s eventual conclusion that the man in question was probably mildly mentally ill in a way that made it difficult for him to communicate and answer his captors’ questions. Awful.
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Rod Dreher says:
Yeah, fake comments? Awful. That’s so objectionable on its face I can’t imagine what they were thinking.
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Adam says:
They did moderate all comments on the article before they were posted. Normally, they only moderate comments after they have been posted.
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Ethan C. says:
It reminds me of a hotel my tour group stayed in during a trip to Cornwall once. In each of our rooms, on each bed, there was what appeared to be a newspaper. It was even written in a standard journalistic style. But it was all about the hotel, and its amazing artistic owners and how great they were.
Later we discovered that the owners were Scientologists. And it all suddenly made sense.
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Helen says:
I think the photo of the DC Scientology building in the Atlantic post is doctored. That’s the building, but those people have to be photoshopped in, unless they closed R Street and 20th where it meets Conn. so that they could stand there, which is possible but unlikely.
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cka2nd says:
I’ve always appreciated The Nation’s policy, re-stated every time some folks write in that they are cancelling their subscription because of the Fox News/Cigarette/Israel-lobby ad. It’s basically “We need the money!” so they’ll publish almost anything, with the exceptions noted below. From the January 29, 1979 issue and reprinted on their website:
“We accept it not to further the views of The Nation but to help pay the costs of publishing. We start, therefore, with the presumption that we will accept advertising even if the views expressed are repugnant to those of the editors. The only limits are those that grow out of our interest in assuring that the advertising does not impede our use of the editorial columns of The Nation to say what we want. Examples of advertising we might reject are those WHERE THE TYPOLGRAPHY AND LAYOUT SIMULATE OUR EDITORIAL FORMAT AND, THEREBY, DECEIVE READERS [emphasis added, and this is where The Atlantic ran afoul]; or advertisements that are lurid or typographically ugly or that distort the appearance of The Nation by their size, frequency or placement; or that are patently fraudulent, illegal or libelous in their claims and language. Blatantly misleading ads, or ads purveying harmful products, will fall into a gray area of discretion, but as a general principle, we assume that our readers will have sufficient knowledge to judge for themselves the merits of commonly known products (such as cigarettes).”
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Helen, I agree. Looking at the photos in the cached version, the crowds do look a little too “crisp” in all of them.
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Kilgore Sandtrout says:
If Xenu had any sense , he would have left the engrams on the Christian Brothers’ doorstep.
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When I go to the newsstand, I sometimes buy this publication and/or Chronicles because I appreciate their sincerity and professionalism.
The only mainstream publication I still feel that way about is the NYRB. The rest, I skim onsite or online if they look interesting, but I make sure that not one dollar of mine goes into their coffers. The Atlantic trades on their credibility with stunts like this and with their $50,000-to-get-in-the-door lobbyist lunches, Harper’s simply sucks now, and The New Yorker isn’t critical enough of the president. So they don’t get any of my money, even while I read a few of their words.
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Gus says:
“I consider(ed) the Atlantic to be at the very apex of high standards and professionalism” At one point, yes, but not for some time. Two words: Megan McArdle.
Because Lisa McPherson, that’s why.