Following this post — and the comments after it — about a job advert I wasn’t too happy about, I thought I’d add this follow up which I original posted as a comment on this blog here.
Hi Simon!
I have to say, my estimations of the company you represent have u-turned since that original post. The willingness to change the ad is very refreshing indeed!
That said, I still take issue with the notion of ‘journalism’ coming from within a marketing agency. Your colleague, Antony, commented: “We also have one former journalist from a national magazine who writes advertorial-style copy for client and advertorial websites.”
Advertorial, as I see it, is not journalism. It’s PR, through and through. Sure, it requires accurate journalism skills like research, interviewing and similar — but then so does an essay, or a report, or any piece of informed writing.
Antony does acknowledge that advertorial does blur the boundaries between journalism and PR, but suggests that the jobs you and your colleague undertook at your magazine titles involved advertorial work and, thus, your work for Spannerworks is no different.
I’m not for a moment saying journalists don’t write advertorial. They do. I’ve written a couple (but both times insisted my name was nowhere near it). At some magazines and newspapers, journalists will be writing job adverts, or listings, or maybe even setting out Sudoku puzzles.
My point is, not all a journalist does in his/her day to day work should be considered journalism. Advertorials are not journalism — they’re long, expensive adverts. So to say that because someone was doing advertorials when they were a journalist then it surely means they are still being a journalist now is just short-sighted and a little wishful.
Of course, this whole argument falls well and truly on its face when I realise I can’t tell you exactly what I think journalism *is*. But, I’d say it was nigh on impossible to report on a subject when you have an overriding interest in it.
On a lighter note, though, you both make cracking bloggers. Very interesting reads.
Kind Regards,
Dave
Happy New Year all. I was going to do a year in review post, but I decided I was so sick of seeing articles about 2007 all over the papers I couldn’t be bothered.
Have a good one whatever you decide to do!
Hi Dave
Great blog, I agree with all you’ve said about what constitutes journalism. I think maybe I should say how things are organised here at Spannerworks.
Our colleague, who formerly worked as a journalist, has the title of Copywriter. The bulk of her job is to write advertorial content and product copy, published in separate outlets to the editorial services.
Simon and I write news and blog posts, both of which are there to stand on their own merits as objective editorial. We aim to operate to the same standards of journalistic integrity as any conventional media outlet.
The clients who sign up for our editorial services understand that this kind of content cannot serve as advertorial or PR for their company – it’s ‘proper’ news, designed to add value to the client’s website because it’s genuinely useful. The client generally has no input into its creation other than to help us formulate a brief.
If it’s not the real thing, readers can get their news just as easily somewhere else – and the providers of dodgy news can be flamed in a multitude of public forums (including Hackbash), which may have a negative impact on the publisher’s reputation. So it’s in their interest to invest in proper news written by genuine journalists.
Charlie
Hi Dave, we’ve replaced the job advert with one that much better describes the role and I’ve written a bit more about it.
Thanks again – I hope that the job will now interest the sort of candidates we’re after, who are probably exactly the people who would have been deterred by the original ad!
Cheers,
Simon.
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it’s ‘proper’ news, designed to add value to the client’s website because it’s genuinely useful