What a great idea!
Pam and Russ Martens speculate that Forbes may have pulled an article critical of JPMorgan because they don’t want to damage an interesting relationship they have with said JPMorgan.
If Forbes doesn’t have to worry about a libel lawsuit, what else might be behind its rapid yanking of the article? As it turns out, Forbes sells, for hefty fees, the ability for corporations to write their own articles and post them as news articles on the Forbes web site. JPMorgan Chase is engaged in such a program with Forbes. Instead of stating that the content is paid advertising, the content carries the nebulous appendage of “BrandVoice.”
Apparently, this has been going on for years at Forbes and other “journalistic” enterprises , though this is the first I’ve heard of it.
Now, this site is no Forbes in terms of page views, etc., but still, this has me thinking. Would I truly be compromising my principles if I let, say, the Donald Trump campaign post stuff on my site, provided I received a reasonable consideration? The answer is clearly “no”, provided the consideration was decidedly reasonable. That’s the American way.
Of course, like Forbes, I’d attach a clear notice, such as the term BrandVoice to any such post, to make sure my readers were aware that I didn’t necessarily approve of the content. Unfortunately, I’m having trouble coming up with a term as chock full of informational content as BrandVoice.
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