The Atlantic's Scientology Advertorial 213
magic maverick writes "The Atlantic recently ran an 'advertorial' for the 'Church of Scientology'. During this time, they filtered comments and removed negative comments. While they have since apologized, incisive.nu has an interesting run down of what they did wrong, from both a moral and business perspective."
It turns out these sponsored stories are commonplace, and a serious source of revenue: "Native ads are critical to The Atlantic’s livelihood. They are one element of digital advertising revenue, which in 2012 accounted for a striking 59 percent of the brand’s overall advertising revenue haul. Unclear just how much of the digital advertising revenue stems from sponsor content. We’re working on that."
If you sleep with a dog, you get fleas (Score:5, Insightful)
The only question here is "Which one is the dog?"
Is it the Church of Scientology--whose batshit-crazy cult bullshit, strongarm tactics, litigious bullying, etc. are quite well-known by now? Is it these poor souls, who have fallen so far out of favor in recent years that they're losing members even in their traditional gullible himbo/bimbo bastion of Hollywood?
Or is it the Atlantic, who gave up any pretense of integrity long ago, and whore themselves out like a $5 hooker to any advertiser still dumb enough to think that anyone under the age of ancient still reads The Atlantic? Is it these poor souls, who still bother to publish a magazine that hasn't been relevant since The Great War?
I think a better analogy might be two dying dogs, lying down together in a last feeble attempt to fend off the cold.
Re:If you sleep with a dog, you get fleas (Score:5, Insightful)
Poor souls? At least a prostitute provides a valuable service, unlike that cult.
Re:If you sleep with a dog, you get fleas (Score:5, Funny)
Excuse me sir, We at the CoS have trademarked the term "cult" and your use of it is forbidden by copyright. You'll be hearing from our legal team.
Re:If you sleep with a dog, you get fleas (Score:5, Funny)
Pfft. If you were really with the CoS, you'd have made Slashdot remove the post.
Re:If you sleep with a dog, you get fleas (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, they've managed to demonstrate that Tom Cruise is an insufferable idiot.
That counts for something.
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they also gave us Battlefield Earth, which is one of the most gloriously bad, campy, unintentionally funny films ever made.
Re:If you sleep with a dog, you get fleas (Score:5, Informative)
Did 'they' do that? Hubbard had written that bit of fiction before he moved onto his really lucrative fiction.
Seriously, would you trust a religion started by a science fiction writer who said "You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion."?
Really? Aliens? That can only be detected with your voodoo device? Is that the best he could come up with?
Re:If you sleep with a dog, you get fleas (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Aliens? That can only be detected with your voodoo device? Is that the best he could come up with?
That it worked so well and suckered so many ... that may have been his point.
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Hubbard had written that bit of fiction before he moved onto his really lucrative fiction.
Actually Battlefield Earth was published in 1982, while Scientology was started in 1952 or 1953, depending on your definition of "started." Your other points, however, are quite accurate.
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It worked.
It takes a selectively blind person to WANT religion, but that sort of person is incapable of critical thinking on that specific subject however brillian or stupid they might otherwise be. Hit the sweet spot and they'll be your bitch.
Re:How is Scientology worse than any other religio (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a really stupid rhetorical question, but it's a pretty good actual question. In case someone comes along who is interested in answers:
* Coercing members to have abortions so they won't waste money raising kids; instead, the money can go to the organization.
* Complete ban on mental health care.
* Major and sustained efforts to undermine health care for other people too, as part of their general war on anything related to psychiatry.
* Systematic destruction of family relationships and friendships which in any way endanger someone's loyalty to the organization.
* Systematic attacks on critics, including anyone who says anything just a bit negative.
* Various lawsuits, legal hassles, and so on; they use these to get things like preferential tax treatment (they get better tax breaks than any religion does).
* According to their founder, they are in fact not a religion at all, and are in no way religious; they adopted the "religion" thing only for legal benefits, while not actually being a religious organization in any way.
* Paulette Cooper and "operation Freakout", in which they forged bomb threats from someone who'd said things they didn't like.
* Lisa McPherson, who was tied to a bed and denied any sort of care until she was nearly-dead, then dropped off at a hospital (where she died because she was already too far gone), on the grounds that she had been thinking about seeking medical care. Anything where your autopsy reveals "cockroach feeding sites" should not be considered a viable medical treatment.
Christians can be really annoying (trust me on this; I am one, I should know), but the vast, vast, majority of them do not have a policy that says that they are obliged to take any and all possible measures to prevent me from disagreeing with them or telling other people I think they're wrong. Yes, some of the specific organizations have, over the last couple thousand years, gotten way out of line. But it's never been the official policy of the entire thing. The "Fair Game" policy is a whole new category compared to the policies that religions generally have.
In short, they are on the lunatic fringe compared even to the lunatic fringes of the world's religions. (And I don't say "any other religion" because L. Ron Hubbard said Scientology was not a religion, and he's presumably authoritative.)
When the Catholic Church tells its members to absolutely cut off all communciation with anyone who badmouths them, at all, ever, then we can talk about how Scientology is in any way similar to religions. Without that, you're just demonstrating severe ignorance of what it is that people dislike about Scientology.
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When the Catholic Church tells its members to absolutely cut off all communciation with anyone who badmouths them, at all, ever, then we can talk about how Scientology is in any way similar to religions.
So, basically unless they're exactly like Scientology then we can't discuss the similarities? Fuck you, that false dichotomy, and any other apologist for any organization that has anything like "excommunication". I won't even go into how similar the infiltration and intimidation tactics are, even if one is a bit worse than the other... I'll just pose the question: Do you really think a US presidential candidate could claim to be anything but Christian and still win the election?
When you point a finger
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Re:If you sleep with a dog, you get fleas (Score:5, Informative)
If you think that was funny - I've never seen it - you should read the book.
As a lifelong SF fan, let me tell you what it was: a pulp writer's parody? homage? to every single pulp magazine genre that was extant in the late forties and early fifties, when Hubbard was writing. The section of Air Adventures, Detective Stories, Jungle Adventure Stories. Seagoing Adventure, SF, and on, and on. They were perfect... hackneyed pulp writing.
And btw, to Battlefield Earth was published about 4 years before he died. Dianetics, his first foray, is from the late forties, while Dianetics is from the fifties; by the seventies, he was already calling it a "church", and spent something like the last 10 years of his life on his yacht, wanted by the authorities in the UK for tax evasion, as they didn't consider The Church of Scienterifficology a church or religion.
What "really lucrative fiction" were you referring to, followuper?
mark
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The camp really translates well to the movie then.
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What "really lucrative fiction" were you referring to, followuper?
mark
Scientology, of course.
Re:If you sleep with a dog, you get fleas (Score:5, Insightful)
Plan 9 From Outer Space and This Island Earth are gloriously bad, campy and unintentionally funny films. Battlefield Earth was pretty much unwatchable. It was the film equivalent of a guy so bad you wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire. It's so awful it isn't even worthy of MST3K treatment.
I remember my wife and I rented it, and while I knew perfectly well who Hubbard was, was willing to view the movie on its own merits. After about 20 minutes, we gladly turned it off. A few years later it was on cable so I decided to give it another go. After the first scene with Forest Whitaker and John Travolta I changed the channel.
The Human Centipede 2 is a work of art compared to Battlefield Earth.
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Now now, it's not that bad. I rewatched it again recently, or at least part of it. While horrible, it's not insufferable.
For me the one thing that did repeatedly get on my nerves were the skewed camera angles. Every single frame is skewed 45 degrees in one way or the other.
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It's so awful it isn't even worthy of MST3K treatment.
How about a RiffTrax [rifftrax.com]? They're the same MST3K guys, BTW.
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ROTFL! I may actually pay for that. The part where the voice over proclaims "It's become a Noel Coward play!" is priceless.
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This is a partial list of L. Ron Hubbard’s published classic works of fiction. Included are Battlefield Earth, Fear, To the Stars, Final Blackout and Typewriter in the Sky, which were published in 1940 and reprinted numerous times.
The above is from Wiki [wikipedia.org]. Later in the article it extrapolates Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 is a 1982 science fiction novel written by L. Ron Hubbard. He composed a soundtrack to the book called Space Jazz. Initially titled "Man, the Endangered Species"
Honest mistake.
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Re:If you sleep with a dog, you get fleas (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not going to support people who, as part of their personal lie, take action and make up lies that harm others. I don't care how fucking good his movie may, or may not, be.
Re:If you sleep with a dog, you get fleas (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm not going to support people who, as part of their personal li[f]e, take action and make up lies that harm others.
Has Tom Cruise done that himself, though? Or is he just as deluded as the other poor fools who've been suckered into Scientology - moreso, in his case perhaps, since it would be even more in Scientology's interests to continue buffing his ego, given the considerable interest his name can generate. They gave him a freakin' medal, for Xenu's sake. I wouldn't be surprised if Cruise had been told and genuinely believed that all of the negative press about Scientology was part of an establishment (or alien) cons
Re:If you sleep with a dog, you get fleas (Score:5, Interesting)
He's a middling actor at best, and lately has been stuck in the same tired re-hash of his hero fantasy.
I'm sorry, but having seen him jumping on Oprah's sofa, and talking about how modern medical science is wrong about anti-depressants and the like ... he's a crackpot idiot.
You want to make extraordinary claims? Back 'em up or STFU. He sure as heck can't back them up.
I don't give a shit what he does in his personal life ... but I'm sure as hell not going to watch his movies and give the impression he deserves more of a public forum.
By all means, feel free to watch what he's making if you're into that -- but to me he's moved into the realm of actors I dislike and won't watch his stuff.
Re:If you sleep with a dog, you get fleas (Score:5, Informative)
talking about how modern medical science is wrong about anti-depressants and the like
A broken clock is right twice a day, and crazy ass Tom Cruise is right about this too. A 2008 meta analysis [plosmedicine.org] of all studies, published and unpublished, on SSRI antidepressants found that the effects are clinically insignificant in the great majority of patients. Only those ranked as very severely depressed experience any significant benefit over placebo.
It's been 6 years since that study, and none have overturned its conclusions. Yet SSRIs are prescribed to the moderately depressed every day. I've asked psychiatrists how they can justify this in light of the data, they've responded with their own confirmation biases. I don't see any way to interpret this but to conclude that psychiatry for depression is almost entirely a scam.
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"I don't see any way to interpret this but to conclude that psychiatry for depression is almost entirely a scam."
Bingo. They've been collecting their office fees, and subscribing drugs to enrich the pharmaceuticals for at least fifty years now. It's amazing how many psychiatric patients are "cured" when there is no more money to squeeze out of them. Hyperactivity is just as much a scam as depression.
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I don't see any way to interpret this but to conclude that psychiatry for depression is almost entirely a scam.
That conclusion is not supported by your premises. On the contrary...
Pharmacological treatment of severe depression is effective. If we lump such treatment into "psychiatry", your conclusion is patently false.
You have presented no evidence documenting the efficacy of psychiatry in general (without regard to specific treatment modalities), hence your conclusion is unsupported. Furthermore, I'll hazard to guess that there are treatments used by psychiatrists for their moderately depressed patients which ar
Re:If you sleep with a dog, you get fleas (Score:5, Informative)
Having suffered from moderate dysthymia for the past 20 years with bouts of severe depression, I can safely state three things:
1. Psychologist == psychotherapist. I saw my psychologist 1 hour a week for about 5 years straight when I needed the help.
2. Psychiatrist == pharmacologist. I see my psychologist for 30 minutes every six to twelve months to get a prescription refill. The demand on psychiatrists is high, because very few people are crazy enough to get a PhD and the turn around and get an MD. 12-16 years of school tends to make them only slightly less insane than their patients.
3. Antidepressants allow me to function in society. My condition is an exception, however, because it actually is a chemical imbalance. Without medication I stop going to work/school, then stop spending time with friends, then stop talking to people in any way, then stop cleaning the house, then stop bathing, then stop eating.
Fuck Tom Cruise and fuck the Church of Scientology.
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See, and this is what people forget. Just because these meds are over-prescribed doesn't mean that they aren't effective, nor that there aren't many people who genuinely benefit from them. I'm glad to hear your life has been improved. I know a bit about depression, but I can't imagine what "severe" depression must be like. Don't let the cynics get to you.
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Pharmacological treatment of severe depression is effective. If we lump such treatment into "psychiatry", your conclusion is patently false.
Note how I said "almost entirely". SSRI's work for the severely depressed. That's a small fraction of the population though, so that's not very profitable.
You have presented no evidence documenting the efficacy of psychiatry in general (without regard to specific treatment modalities), hence your conclusion is unsupported. Furthermore
Why would the efficacy of psychi
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Your argument is that psychiatry is affirmative fraud, that psychiatrists know that their drugs don't work, and that this information is suppressed for the sake of profits -- and you base this all off of one paper, a paper that says nothing about fraud, profits, or suppressed knowledge. Find the paper that proves psychiatrists systematically misreport outcomes, or that they believe drugs don't work, or that they
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Rather than resorting to ad hominem, how about you counter some of my arguments? If I'm wrong, that's the only way I'll learn. And if I'm not, you'll learn something by trying to refute me.
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It's been 6 years since that study, and none have overturned its conclusions. Yet SSRIs are prescribed to the moderately depressed every day. I've asked psychiatrists how they can justify this in light of the data, they've responded with their own confirmation biases. I don't see any way to interpret this but to conclude that psychiatry for depression is almost entirely a scam.
Quite a stretch. You may be putting too much on this study. I'd read at least this [sciencebasedmedicine.org] before concluding "it's a scam".
for example... "The study has numerous weaknesses, however. Because the study only looked at pre-approval clinical trials it did not account for all available data. Also, once a drug is approved study designs are more variable as they are no longer specifically designed to meet the criteria for FDA approval and may be more relevant to clinical practice. The analysis only considered a single mea
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That path, to the dark side it leads. Consider all when making a decision you should.
Re:If you sleep with a dog, you get fleas (Score:4, Funny)
Burma Shave? :-P
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So, in short, you approve of those advertising packages promoted by the entertainment industry, and you don't give a damn about the fools who live inside those packages?
I could make a list of individuals, if they were on fire, I wouldn't urinate on them. Heading the list would probably be that dead drug addict kiddie diddler, Michael Jackson. That boy was a freak, by almost any definition. The fact that he was filthy freaking RICH was good enough for most people to forgive him of all his sins, crimes, ec
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Well, they've managed to demonstrate that Tom Cruise is an insufferable idiot.
That counts for something.
That falls into the category of self-evident. No third-party demonstration is needed.
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Poor souls? At least a prostitute provides a valuable service, unlike that cult.
Providing hours upon hours of laughter for us sane people isn't a valuable service?
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You claim to be sane? I don't see Cruise as funny. Is it possible that you are a product of conditioning by the mass media? When the canned laughter sounds, you laugh? Something to think about, huh?
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You want to see the church of scientololgy in boxing matches?
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I think a better analogy might be two dying dogs, lying down together in a last feeble attempt to fend off the cold.
Hey, they're both just chasing the Almighty Buck. You should show a little patriotic respect.
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SPONSOR CONTENT [boingboing.net]
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I dont' think opressive scientology ads are important to the livelihood of the atlantic. I think it's important to the expanded profit margins of the upper echelons.
Re:If you sleep with a dog, you get fleas (Score:5, Insightful)
Not a good analogy, because one may feel pity for two dying dogs.
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There's nothing dishonest or dishonorable about being a hooker. And prostitution should not be disreputable.
I cannot say the same for Scientology.
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Suddenly here they are, bigger than ever, and vying for space in main stream media publications.
Most of the controversy is because it's THEM.
The statements that they make in the advertorial seem to be conservative positive reports about facilities they have opened, etc. This sort of thing is all verifiable, as well as the conclusion that this means something for their leadership.
Because i
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to any advertiser still dumb enough to think that anyone under the age of ancient still reads The Atlantic?
I find myself reading atlantic articles every once in a while: their stuff shows up on at least flipboard. That to me seems like they're adapting to newer format a little better than, say, newsweek.
Re:If you sleep with a dog, you get fleas (Score:5, Insightful)
Starting with slavery and moving on to the railroad monopolies, tammany hall, the Chicago political machine, union busting in the 1930's, the company towns of the coal mines, separate but equal and on and on and on. We do try in fits and starts to fix these things, but always the rich and privileged find ways to give themselves privileges and immunity that the average Joe is not entitled to. It is not just American history but world history that teaches us this. So, maybe we should stop being sad about a time that didn't exist and do something about it. Whether we vote with our money or in the ballot box or through protest it is up to us to change things and looking back on a better time that did not really exist will not get it done.
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Hot damn! Spot on! I will however point out that most people lack the critical thinking abilities to see the truth in what your post. Really, that guy on the TV News station told them that it used to be fair, and politicians tell them that they matter so it has to be true!
Principals (Score:2, Insightful)
High Brow Magazine abandons principals in pursuit of the almighty dollar, news at 11.
Slashvertisement (Score:5, Interesting)
This article is something, coming from a tech site that has blatantly posted advertisements disguised as stories, intentionally or not.
The only reason the atlantic caught shit was that it was that CoS is easy an hated target, product placement articles are nothing new or interesting.
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You don't see the difference between product placement and a cult using a newspaper to ruin more lives?
When does slashdot run ads for crack cocaine? That would be similar to what we are talking about here.
Re:Slashvertisement (Score:5, Funny)
You don't see the difference between product placement and a cult using a newspaper to ruin more lives?
When does slashdot run ads for crack cocaine? That would be similar to what we are talking about here.
Well, Slashdot is always pushing bitcoin. If that won't ruin your life, nothing will.
Re:Slashvertisement (Score:5, Funny)
When does slashdot run ads for crack cocaine?
My god man - how can you say that so callously? I just ordered my twenty-seventh Raspberry Pi board - this month!
Insensitive clod.
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The post you responded too presented a valid point. Your response is an argument from Fallacy. No, there is no similarity as you describe. Further, you can not say that a person is more or less guilty of a crime depending on what the substance is. A guy found guilty of selling Crack is not "less guilty" than the person who was selling Heroin. Both are criminal acts and both are illegal.
I dislike CoS as much as the next person that dislikes the CoS, so don't confuse what I'm saying in any way with defen
Your an idiot and spreading lies (Score:2)
There are to crimes, degrees. Not all murder is equal, not all theft is equal and not all corruption is equal. It is one thing to take money for advertising a stupid product and quite another for advertising a murderous criminal organization preying on the weak minded.
That you don't get this shows you to be a poor human being, no doubt you would view the theft of a loaf of bread the same as the theft of a diamond.
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The rate you refer to is what society uses as a measurefor the punishment, not the state of guilt or innocence. If I take property that does not belong to me I am guilty of theft. Whether the theft was a diamond or loaf of bread is not relevant as to my guilt of crime.
Claiming that I'm more guilty based on what I stole is ludicrous.
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Claiming that I'm more guilty based on what I stole is ludicrous.
Errr grand theft vs. petty theft?
Re:Slashvertisement (Score:4, Funny)
When does slashdot run ads for crack cocaine?
There's a weed story every other week.
Re:Slashvertisement (Score:5, Insightful)
Matters of degree are a big deal though.
The question is where to draw that line, at any shilling or for bad enough product. Slashdot seems to have chosen the latter, the Atlantic seems to want to get rid of the line altogether.
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the Atlantic seems to want to get rid of the line altogether.
An ad that looks just like reporting is in reality just shitty reporting. If the Atlantic wants to publish shitty reporting, their readers will move elsewhere. Problem solved.
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Some papers seem to get more successful the shittier their reporting. See tabloids.
Or the USA TODAY that I get free at the hotel when I travel. I have heard that the international version isn't so bad but the domestic one is garbage.
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The difference is the paid nature of the content. As far as I know, the slashvertisements are not paid ads disguised as stories and the comments are not covertly censored to eliminate criticism and create the illusion of grass roots support..
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This article is something, coming from a tech site that has blatantly posted advertisements disguised as stories, intentionally or not.
Point, but part of the story here is that New Atlantic was actively deleting negative comments about Scientology while allowing positive comments to remain (albeit with a metric fuckton of downvotes). There's no such process of selective moderation at SlashDot because moderators are assigned at random.
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Its pretty easy to see where they are active, typical slashdot stories have around 200 posts, where they are active, it is much greater.
I donno about that... a typical "book report" might only score 10 comments, usually one of them is me asking why/how the book is better than "google for it"
I see small comment numbers on "tech" and large comment numbers on "politics". If it sounds like something you'd see screencasted on Hak5 or audio podcasted on hacker public radio theres like 50 comments, if it sounds like something you'd see on fox news or dr phil its got about 200 comments. If its the kind of thing the lamestream media would interrup
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Well, tech generally falls into one of two categories - "cool" and "
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I have a trailer hitch on my 4 cyl Integra and it's quite useful. Thanks for reminding me that I need to buy a ballbag for it, though.
Yeah that big turnoff for me isn't the bag hanging underneath, its the bag hanging under the cavernous gaping stretched out hole of a hitch receiver. Always brings up bad memories of goatse and the funniest part is the bag hanging guys on their manly pickup truck are supposed to be all Mr Homophobia, but here they are driving a goatse mobile instead. Maybe they're actually the brokeback mountain cowboys instead. I donno its all very weird. This all came from a discussion claiming a hitch without the bal
The Onion's take on it (Score:5, Insightful)
The Onion skewered the "sponsored content" [theonion.com] concept nicely yesterday. Even sponsored content needs to meet editorial standards, maybe even more so since you are accepting compensation for allowing them to use your brand name to promote theirs.
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The Onion is the new 'wikileaks'. That was actually stolen minutes from a CIA conference [youtube.com].
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Very amusing, thanks for pointing this one out.
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There is a slight problem with your request for punishment. In order for the fraud to be punishable there must be intent to cause harm. Proving that this advert caused any harm, or was intended to cause harm, would be impossible (and without merit ).
Is it worthy of people boycotting the magazine forever? Most surely yes. Is it punishable? Not in a criminal sense, but consumers should punish them by boycotting. Further, other organizations in a similar line of work should publicly shun them and learn f
The Taliban and Cthulhu (Score:5, Funny)
This was recently mocked by both the Onion [theonion.com] and Boing Boing [boingboing.net]. I think this is one of the first times that I'm less afraid of Cthulhu than the alternative. Actually, Cthulhu looks pretty damn reasonable when he wears a suit and a tie.
"Serious Source of Revenue" (Score:5, Insightful)
Piss off your readers, they'll go somewhere else for news.
If your readers go somewhere else, so will your advertisers.
If The Atlantic takes a major fiscal hit over this (which I certainly hope they do), they've got no one to blame but themselves.
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You know what the most serious source of revenue for a publication is? Readership.
The heart of the problem is that readership is no longer an adequate source of revenue. The Atlantic's actions should be seen as an act of desperation, not a sell-out.
We are all losers if it becomes unfeasible to perform the quality of journalism that the Atlantic built its reputation on.
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You know what the most serious source of revenue for a publication is? Readership.
The heart of the problem is that readership is no longer an adequate source of revenue. The Atlantic's actions should be seen as an act of desperation, not a sell-out.
Readership is still the key determining factor in the survivability of a publication, because advertisers base their decisions regarding where to place their adverts based on readership (or hits, or visits, or whatever term for "people who see this material" you want to use). No readers (site visitors) == no advertisements == no money.
We are all losers if it becomes unfeasible to perform the quality of journalism that the Atlantic built its reputation on.
I take it you don't watch any of the 24-hour-cycle media networks, do you? Low quality journalism coupled with near-constant advertisement is pretty much the name of the game
Don't be so quick dismiss a Fox News article (Score:4, Insightful)
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Except in CNET's case, the decision was driven by the parent's company litigation with Dish network. I can understand CBS' aversion to having one of its subsidiaries endorsing a product that its trying to stop in court. I'm not commenting on the merits of their case, but I can understand the situation they found themselves in. I always found CNET's "Best in Show" arbitrary and in fact one of their "Best in Show" was awarded twice (2012 & 2013) to the same product that has yet seen the light of day (The
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I think this CNET situation shows a significant issue with the more 'popular' journalism - corporate bias. While we can all understand CBS's motivations, I feel that there needs to be far more journalistic integrity in situations like these; CNET's job was to provide awards based on merit, independent from what their parent company may be involved in (although, like you said, some of their reporting is questionable at best, even when parent company conflict of interest isn't involved).
So, basically, fuck yo
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Don't be so quick dismiss NPR/PBS/BBC/Etc Either (Score:2)
You don't need to justify watching Fox then when NPR, PBS, and foreign sources like BBC or Times of India. BBC in particular has the unique perspective that often rings more true than many domestic sources.
Fox does not deserve attention because they suck at journalism (sourcing in particular). Fox should not get praise for covering "other stuff" because multiple sources do journalism so much better without the taint. On the entertainment side, I would take one episode of "This American Life" or "Frontlin
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Our media is constantly showing their biases.
Every person has his own biases. A journalist's job is to minimize those biases as much as possible to present a fair and balanced perspective. Some groups of journalists (The New York Times, for example) are better at this than others (The Washington Times).
That being said, in every media organization there is a struggle between the people who produce the content (the editor and his team of editors and reporters) and the people who find ways to pay salaries and keep the lights on (the publisher and his
This happens all the time. (Score:3)
I don't see what's new here... (Score:2)
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Is the Atlantic held to a higher standard for whatever reason?
Yes.
There are two differences. One is that the ad was made to look like a normal, unbiased news article. But at the same time, someone was removing critical comments. The latter is bad, the former is pretty much unforgivable for a news site.
The Atlantic isn't alone (Score:5, Interesting)
Foreign Policy, which was bought by the Washington Post a few years ago, started running these type of things around the time (shortly before or after, don't recall) of the change in ownership. Now that I think about it, it was probably shortly after, because the Post itself began running a bunch of "Chinawatch" segments on its site, which were basically advertorials from China Daily, one of China's state-run newspapers. At any rate, around the time I noticed that FP started to be over half full of ads by volume, and that easily 3/4 of that was some marketing drivel about how awesome China is, or how Dubai is doing such wonderful things in the world, is when I dropped my subscription. I'm not paying for a bimonthly travel brochure, and I'm sure as hell not reading a magazine about international relations that sells ad space to propagandists.
Scientology is fading (Score:5, Interesting)
I cam across this very long, very interesting story about Scientology last night which details how with diminishing membership, it is trying to squeeze the very last dime out of those remaining and accelerating its die-off.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexklein/is-scientology-self-destructing [buzzfeed.com]
Re: (Score:2)
New York Times (Score:2)
One of the cops always yells 'he's got a gun!' as the broken door gives way.
I notice Nature has "sponsored papers" (Score:2)
slashvertisement (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
so I'm not trying to push an agenda by asking this question.
Bullshit! Asking a question is always pushing an agenda. Even if you are only asking where to find a toilet, you are pushing an agenda.