Make Media Great Again

The line between sponsored and editorial content needs to be reinforced.

- Mark Tungate

“You are very fake news.”

When I heard about Newseum’s controversial T-shirts—now withdrawn and hopefully recycled—I felt an odd shiver of guilt. I had to step back and ask myself why. And I came to the alarming conclusion that, despite being a member of Britain’s National Union of Journalists for around 30 years, with a press card tucked neatly into my wallet, I may have become a fake journalist.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a journalist as “a writer or editor for a news medium” or “a writer who aims at a mass audience.” The second definition may give me some wiggle room, but it’s been a long time since I made my living purely writing articles for the news media.

Media organizations have gone through a similar transformation. Just as the borders between journalism and PR have blurred, so have the borders between editorial and advertising. The frightening part is that everyone seems to have stopped caring.

Long ago, when I worked full time for a magazine, the relationship between journalists and ad sales people was prickly. Now it seems a whole lot cozier.