No one seems to mind advertising on newspaper front pages. It's usually subtle, and it's become part of our culture. But with magazines, for some reason it's a different story. Maybe it's because some magazines are publishing editions with entire covers dedicated to advertising (sometimes called "double covers" by the industry, known as "false covers" by others), or flaps covering ads in the middle of the cover.
Is this ethical? The New York Times looks into the issue as it affects consumer magazines, here. A link to the story is also posted on the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center website.
Along with colleagues Jim Evans and Karen Simon, I'll be presenting research results on the influence of advertisers on agricultural journalists in the U.S. and Canada, at this summer's Agricultural Media Summit, being held in conjunction with the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists' annual congress in Fort Worth, Texas.
