Ads for coverage?

[Paul]

Did this ever or does this currently ever happen with Matador and a publication? Because I think we all knew it was going on, but now it's documented:

http://idolator.com/tunes/magazines/littleknown-music-magazine-attempts-bigtime-adsales-scheme-229421.php

[tinobeat]

whoa, interesting.

I mean, its not wrong or immoral or anything. I'm just glad the guy from Birdman made it public so everyone can make an informed decision about whether or not to purchase Amplifier magazine. Now we know the guy covers music for dollars and that's it. I know what my dollars are gonna say!

[johansen smith]

recently I read this fake-Maxim magazine for guys a notch above Maxim magazine readers called Giant, and everything they reviewed doesn't technically exist yet. like, the albums and movies and TV shows they "review" and give stars to aren't available at all, but they just guess at what stars they should assign and pretend they've seen/heard the item at hand. I guess what I'm saying is it could be worse

[Patrick]

I've never seen anything this explicit. Except when we were doing hip hop and that's as much as I'm gonna say on THAT subject!

More generally on journalism and advertising: with the advent of the internet and the avalanche of free content competing for readers' eyes, selling magazines (and even more, magazine's online editions or online-only magazines) has become more and more about selling advertising. No longer can publications rely on newsstand sales (I can't believe how deserted newsstands are these days... I remember when you could never get close to the racks in Out Of Town News in Harvard Square; when I was there last month on a Saturday afternoon, you could move around quite freely). Nor can they rely on subscription revenue. Subscriptions are basically free anyway... I get offered major publications (New Yorker, Stereophile) for $10 for a year or two years, all to get circulation numbers up to get more advertising.

When ads get that important the pressure on editorial becomes unbearable and you get the kind of situation the Birdman guy is talking about. Advertising and editorial just kind of slide right into each other... advertorial.

Patrick

[Patrick]

Another way magazines can make money is via promotions and endorsements... you know, CDs to give away in contests (especially common in the UK), or tracks and features for their websites... give us a track to download for this feature we're planning. Of course they were already planning the feature, but the tit-for-tat element locks it down. They use the track to get more eyeballs and clicks, or make their site sexier as they prepare the publication for sale to a private equity firm. The label gets the article. Was it gonna happen anyway? Maybe. Was it gonna be as big? was it gonna be near the front of the book? Maybe.

As a consumer of culture (let alone of material possessions) you need to be savvier and savvier because any pretense of objectivity is vanishing fast. Of course the internet has made this happen, but it's also given us the tools to see through the ads... discussion forums like this one here, or better yet, ones not sponsored by companies like ours with agendas to push.

Of course, you're probably best off with someone like Robert Parker and the Wine Advocate. No ads, full-price subscriptions, and then you've got views from someone who pushes industries around himself, rather than being led by the nose from product to product by deep-pocketed advertisers. In the same class I'd put Edward Behr's The Art of Eating quarterly. Both print only so far as I know.

Nothing similar for music that I know of (I'm sure some regulars can suggest some). The key is to find people who earn all their money from readers as opposed to advertisers... or people who do it completely for free. That unfortunately doesn't really include lots of bloggers anymore!

Patrick

[Paul]

Just about the only print mag I've seen not change its stripes over the years is The Big Takeover. Jack Rabid's editorial vision is as pure as they come (seemingly, anyway).

I've actually been having an email back-and-forth of my own with the guy from Amplifier ever since I read the article on Idolator. He's as dense as a brick about the difference between editorial integrity and the "advertorial" practice he's utilizing (he's both the publisher and ad chief if that tells you anything).

[tinobeat]

I recently began working at a free weekly and design ads, so this whole issue of ads vs. content vs. integrity is one I've become very intimate with recently. Fascinating stuff, really.