Media Jul 18, 2011
Guilt by association: who can you trust to deliver your message?
As details about the phone-hacking scandal involving News of the World became public, among the first to demonstrate their disapproval were advertisers. Ford, among others, abandoned the tabloid rather than be associated with its deceptive, and quite possibly illegal, practices – despite the fact that it delivered the largest newspaper audience in Britain.
Advertisers were, of course, protecting their own brands from guilt by association, somewhat similar to their actions towards Tiger Woods when sordid details of his private life became public. But Tiger, as spokesperson, was endorsing a brand; News of the World was merely a vehicle to deliver a brand’s message.
Although Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation ceased publication of the 168-year old newspaper in an effort to control the damage to its brand, the story still has legs, as they say in the newsroom.
In some aspects, the news about News of the World isn’t new. It was a newspaper after all, The Guardian, which uncovered the story and not an exposé from Wikileaks. And the controversy over the style and content of tabloid journals has existed since the days of yellow journalism over a century ago and even well before then.
At the same time it is a modern drama involving the technology of our time. It also takes place at a time when all newspapers, in fact all news organizations, are struggling to survive and redefine their place in a world where every reader can also be a reporter and traditional funding models no longer apply. In the age of the Internet, what is the future of journalism?
One thing seems certain. Despite this recent controversy, the public is unlikely to lose interest in the often salacious stories that tabloid media delivers. Is that enough for advertisers or will they increasingly examine the ethical behaviour of the media in which their brand appears?
Sunday Papers
Citizen Kane
Lyle TurnerWriter/Producer
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