Source: thetyee.ca
Eight pager formatted much like news, but Stead offers slim explanation.
By: By Jonathan Sas, 22 October 2012, TheTyee.ca
View full article and comments: http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2012/10/22/Globe-Oil-Sands-Advertorial/
“Journalism, commercial interests should be kept separate.”
So ran the headline of a post written by the Globe and Mail’s public editor Sylvia Stead on Sept. 27.
In the midst of the uproar over Margaret Wente’s plagiarism, Stead was busy trying to put out another fire, this one over an article from a freelance journalist who had written glowingly about the house she was selling. In this post, Stead concedes that Globe editors had erred in running the story.
The headline, however, speaks to the Globe’s recognition of something broader and ultimately more important: their duty to maintain a clear line between editorial content and the interests of advertisers. One would expect as much from any serious journalistic outlet.
Allowing that line to blur signals a more serious conflict of interest than was printing the real estate article, or failing to be transparent about the misdeeds of a sloppy columnist.
Unfortunately, as careful readers of the Globe might well have noticed, the self-styled “paper of record” has not been living up to its responsibility. Not by a long shot.