Press Council rejects complaint against native advertising article on Watson.ch
The Press Council has dismissed a complaint filed against a native advertising piece published on the Watson.ch website. Although the editorial and advertising departments worked very closely together, the guidelines governing journalists’ rights and obligations were not violated.
The online news site Watson.ch, which generates around a quarter of its revenue from native advertising, presented an editorial team-created Quizwhich asked the reader to determine "Which outdoor sport suits you best". The questionnaire was followed by an advertisement for a health insurance company that referred to the quiz result but had a different graphic design. The questionnaire and advertisement were marked with the words "Presented by ..." and the logo of the insurance company that had paid for the publication of both.
Watson attaches importance to the internal rule that its authors do not know the client of the advertising combined with their article before publication, the Press Council states in its statement on the complaint. However, the editorial team concedes that advertisers have the right in principle to accept or reject the content of native advertising elements.
Did Watson thereby violate the prescribed separation of editorial content and advertising? If the advertiser had made use of Watson's offer to influence the editorial content, then - despite the playful nature of the quiz questions - Section 10 of the "Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Journalists" would have been violated. It prohibits journalists from accepting conditions for their work from advertisers.
However, as no concrete influence of the advertising client could be proven in this case and no other Press Council regulations were clearly violated, no reprimand had to be issued. However, the Press Council considers it to be more transparent if media articles paid for by advertisers were marked with the words "Paid for by ..." instead of using disguising formulations such as "Presented by ...".
In the meantime, the Press Council has already specified its guidelines on the Code of Journalism in such a way that they are also clearly applicable to newly developed forms of advertising such as "native advertising". The revised Guidelines come into force on July 1, 2017.
