There’s been a lot of talk recently about magazines violating the “church/state divide” that commonly keeps the editorial department apart from the sales team. But as well researched and written as AdAge’s John Fine’s article is, it’s still missing a major point – one with historical precedent, I might add.

The subject at hand is whether or not magazines should yield some of their editorial independence to advertisers – providing additional promotional support to big spenders by including them in stories, featuring their products in illustrative photographs, etc. This goes beyond mentioning the name of a product used by the subject of a story as part of the narrative – what’s being proposed here is actually making the brand name and product a significant part of the story.

Those in the publishing world who are concerned about this trend keep talking about the “division of church and state” when talking about the two distinct realms of authority in the publishing business. And while I certainly don’t disagree with their concerns (more on that in a moment), I’m somewhat dismayed with their continued use of this somewhat inappropriate analogy.

The historian in me comes out. It was bound to happen, I suppose.

While the separation of church and state and the freedom of the press are both related to the First Amendment, I don’t think it is appropriate for the media to co-opt the former for the latter. The church/state separation is not specified in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. In fact, the concept of a separation between church and state was discussed in some detail in correspondence from Thomas Jefferson during his term as the third President of the United States. The actual wording in the First Amendment says that the government will not abridge a person’s right to worship in a manner of their own choosing.

But let’s give journalists who write on advertising, PR and the media the benefit of the doubt and say they never had to bone up on church/state issues in order to get their J-degrees, shall we. Instead, let’s look at the history of American journalism to understand that what’s being proposed here is actually a concept that is centuries old and has been a problem in this country since the institution of a free press.

In fact, during the time of the founding of our country (around the time of the adoption of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights), it was the practice of the day for politicians to hire journalists to write spurious stories about their opponents. Political “brands” were built on the back of highly inflammatory stories that were highly suspect. The only exception to this practice was George Washington – but more on that some other day (’cause that’s pure history bordering on hero worship and has little to do with marketing).

This practice continued in one form or another through the time of the US Civil War until the early part of the twentieth century. The result was that editorial content was always viewed as leaning one direction or another and people of like political persuasions usually subscribed to the same media. Ironic, isn’t it, that the concept of editorial independence from sales – a concept now given institutional status as a tradition (a la the church/state division) – is really a 20th Century convention that has been around for only the past few generations.

But that’s long enough for everyone in the industry to know it as the only way. And therein lies the rub.

If journalists and publishers want to fight against this trend to blend product placements and editorial, they need to use some appropriate historical allusions rather than a tired church/state cliche that is inappropriate (at best) and inflammatory (at worst). By all means they should look to the history of US media to make their point – don’t get me wrong – they’re just not doing their research.

If I were fighting this fight (and I suspect I will get into it at one point or another), I’d raise issues related to the “value” of editorial independence when it comes to building the brand equities of one magazine or another. Some magazine brands (e.g. Lucky) are catalogs with a magazine cover. Readers know what they’re getting when they pick it up. It’s an infomercial on paper – not my kind of thing, but hey, I don’t watch the QVC Channel either. Other magazine brands (e.g. Time, Newsweek) are news magazines with reputations built on editorial guts and objectivity – albeit with a political bent one direction or another.

I am convinced that consumers resent being manipulated. And for brands built on objectivity (or at least partial objectivity), selling product placements inside a news or feature story is a violation of trust and can’t be seen as anything other than manipulation. It may be short-term money for the media, but it’s a huge risk for the brand. Maybe even terminal.

So what should marketers do to deal with this? I don’t think it’s fair for marketers to demand editorial inclusion in stories as an alternate form of media placements (even if those placements are given away as “added value” for a media buy). Marketers should gain media placements the right way – by making news and being relevant.

It’s called public relations.

Later.

MARKETERS PRESS FOR PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN MAGAZINE TEXT

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