Welcome back to Coe for the Spring 2013! Campus was exceedingly quiet over the holidays, with one giant blizzard that shut everything down for a day thrown into the mix. But now that everyone is back and ready to embark on another semester of learning and critical thinking, I wanted to touch on something making the news rounds for last day. Yesterday, the Atlantic, a publication that has been around for more than 100 years and published the likes of Mark Twain and other great American writers and journalists, published a post that can only be described as curious. The post, which has subsequently been pulled, was an unabashedly positive review of the past year for the Church of Scientology; many of the initial comments on the article were equally enthused. The reason everything sounded as though it came straight from the Scientology PR folks was that it. The church paid to post the content on the Atlantic's website, while also formatting and presenting the article just like any other article on the site. Although the article has been pulled, you can see a screengrab of it here. Take a look at the screenshot, then head over to the Atlantic's site and see if you think that you would spot the difference in a hurry. This problem, the idea that readers might believe that this sort of content has the been through the same editorial review process as other content on the site, along with the question of how comments are presented to the masses on pieces such as this, raise real questions for publications that are looking to diversify their profit streams in new and reader-engaging ways.
Response from the media at-large has been widely negative, including from journalists currently published by the Atlantic. Here are a few of the articles covering this situation:
-"The Atlantic Is Now Publishing Bizarre, Blatant Scientology Propaganda as ‘Sponsored Content’" from Gawker
-Business Insider's coverage
-Salon's coverage
Just searching "Atlantic Sponsored Content" via search engine takes users to dozens upon dozens of reactions, so it's easy to see this is something bothering the media at large right now. But for users, those seeking information on a topic, this is a just an additional challenge that must be kept in mind as they search for answers. WHO is giving you your information? Always be thorough when checking out a source, and don't assume that just because something appears on a reputable website that they are also the creator of this content. Read carefully before citing something, and with this in mind, good luck this semester at Coe!
-Katelyn, Head of Reference
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