Caution, deception!
Ethics: The Swiss Press Association warns of an increasing blurring of the lines between editorial and commercial content. Example: 20 Minuten.
Ethics The Swiss Press Association warns: More mixing of editorial and commercial content. Take 20 Minuten, for example.20 Minuten has often made its cover pages available for advertising. On April 5, however, the day after the soft relaunch, the commuter newspaper came up with an innovation: For the first time, a company, in this specific case Orange, was able to design the third and fourth cover pages upside down so that they came across as the front page and page 2 of the commuter paper - headlines, "News" and pictures only for Orange. Only when you turned the newspaper over did you see the editorial front page. In some places (perhaps everywhere?), however, the sheets were placed in the boxes so that the wrong front was facing upwards. The whole thing also had a flaw: neither of the two orange pages was labeled as an advertisement.Rolf Bollmann, Managing Director of the Tamedia title 20 Minuten, confirms "the mistake". However, the declaration had not been deliberately omitted and the newspapers had not been placed upside down. "It wasn't a requirement from Orange either," he says to the major customer. As proof, he points to the past: "So far, we have always declared it properly."
A piquant fact: just a few days earlier, the Ethics Department of the Swiss Press Association (VSP) had pointed out the frequent lack of differentiation between editorial services and commercial advertising. This was the first statement ever (!) from the department, which has been in existence for three and a half years. In it, it refers to Principle 3.12 of the Swiss Commission on Fair Trading, which requires a clear and visible separation and labeling of editorial and advertising. The department also calls for transparency. "The primary and non-negotiable requirement is always: no deception of the reader must be permitted."
There was no single, immediate reason for this warning, says department head Guido Weber on request. "However, there has been a general increase in misunderstandings, which are the most important problem in our department. We are also receiving more and more inquiries from our members," says Weber.
There are other indications that the issue is topical: The Fairness Commission recently demanded that a title separate editorial and paid content more clearly. Specifically, it concerned publicity reports that were labeled as such in the newspaper in question, but were published in the same layout as editorial articles (see WW 9/05). The same case is still pending before the Press Council.
A conference of the Swiss Society for Communication and Media Studies (SGKM) will also be held in Winterthur on April 8 and 9. Among other things, the conference will focus on the relationship of tension and dependency between PR and journalistic quality. Information at www.iam.zhwin.ch/sgkm/.
Second front: The Orange ad looks exactly like 20 minutes.
Markus Knöpfli
A piquant fact: just a few days earlier, the Ethics Department of the Swiss Press Association (VSP) had pointed out the frequent lack of differentiation between editorial services and commercial advertising. This was the first statement ever (!) from the department, which has been in existence for three and a half years. In it, it refers to Principle 3.12 of the Swiss Commission on Fair Trading, which requires a clear and visible separation and labeling of editorial and advertising. The department also calls for transparency. "The primary and non-negotiable requirement is always: no deception of the reader must be permitted."
There was no single, immediate reason for this warning, says department head Guido Weber on request. "However, there has been a general increase in misunderstandings, which are the most important problem in our department. We are also receiving more and more inquiries from our members," says Weber.
There are other indications that the issue is topical: The Fairness Commission recently demanded that a title separate editorial and paid content more clearly. Specifically, it concerned publicity reports that were labeled as such in the newspaper in question, but were published in the same layout as editorial articles (see WW 9/05). The same case is still pending before the Press Council.
A conference of the Swiss Society for Communication and Media Studies (SGKM) will also be held in Winterthur on April 8 and 9. Among other things, the conference will focus on the relationship of tension and dependency between PR and journalistic quality. Information at www.iam.zhwin.ch/sgkm/.
Second front: The Orange ad looks exactly like 20 minutes.
Markus Knöpfli
