in-text ads: ethical or not

After reading an article (listed below) it brought up an important question to my mind. Read on and enjoy.



With most people receiving their news information from the internet advertisers are finding it harder and harder to catch the eye of the consumer.  Recently, web surfers have seen advertisements that move across the screen and ones, that when scrolled over, take up the page completely. Now advertisers have found a new way to get their message to the consumer: in-text ads. Is this ethical?


It is not ethical to defame actual newsworthy information with advertisements. An in-text ad takes away the integrity of the piece, makes the piece less than objective and changes the message, and blurs the lines of advertising and journalistic news.


Recently, “A spokesman told The Wall Street Journal that Fox journalists do not know which keywords advertisers are buying, thus maintaining the firewall between journalistic content and ads.” This is the first reason that this technique is not ethical. This gives the illusion of fairness; this gives the illusion of etiquette. What lies underneath? Although the ads help pay the writer’s paycheck it completely undermines the piece as a whole. Just because the journalist is not informed of what words are bought does not make it right. Sure, it keeps the writer from knowing what specific words to use to get in-text ads in the article, but it gives the advertisers open season on the work. Shouldn’t advertisers have some sort of reverence for the journalist’s work? By putting these in-text ads in the story it completely takes away the integrity of the story and takes away from the hard work of the journalist.


A journalist piece is supposed to be just that; a piece of journalism that is unbiased and universally true. By weaving advertising into the article the piece is losing its objectivity and diminishing its importance.


For example, imagine a painter who has worked for months on a piece. She has literally spent hours upon hours and days upon days working on a single piece. Making small adjustments here and there, fine tuning if you will all aspects of her work till she is satisfied. Finally complete, she is now ready to show the world her work. She shows up at her exposition and sees that in order to help pay for expenses that ads have been placed throughout her painting.


Over the tree is an ad for a landscaping business, over the sun there is an ad for sunglasses, and over the river is an ad for canoeing. Does this not take away from the integrity of the painting? Does this not completely twist the importance of the message and the message itself? The work of the painter has been stripped of its identify and turned into a entirely different object.


Although, the illustration of the painter and the journalist are not the same one can see that the ideas are very similar. These ads take away from the importance of the message and blur the lines between advertisements and journalism. Is the painting still a piece of artwork? Is the article still an article or is it an ad and how closely can we join the two before they become the same? Just as the painting has deterred from its original message so has the article. The plain fact is that a journalistic piece is supposed to be objective only presenting the facts. It is unable to perform its intended task because of in-text ads just like the painting. The message has been tainted. The lines between journalism and advertisement have been blurred.


In-text ads are unethical for the simple fact that they change the intended message and take away the integrity of the piece. Also, these ads tend to make the piece less objective as a whole, as well as change the message. Lastly, the distinctive lines between adverting and journalism begin to blur and become one in the same.