Advertisers and Their Covert Impact on Publications' Output (or Writers' Topics of Choice, as Assigned or Approved by Editors)
It cannot be trivially denied that sponsorship in the form of "advertising" impacts where publishers go (or don't go, won't go)
This post is based on a private conversation, so a lot of small details will be left out. Instead, the general message will be relied upon.
Knowing that IBM is criticised a lot (and strongly) by its very own employees, that is still attacks high-profile Free software people, and that it buys favourable coverage about itself, we recently criticised The Register for taking money from IBM. The Register sought to contest this criticism. It perceived or interpreted that as an accusation that was barely credible or baseless, but we stood our ground and explained why. I want to just quickly give an outline of this, without having to repeat what we said about IBM, Red Hat, and The Register (we have not changed our minds or our position on this).
"I have my share of criticism," I told them, "and not as opinionated as you might assume [...] am still frustrated that El Reg [The Register] does many shallow pieces and sponsored pieces [...] good publishers need not rely on those [...] wealthy? maybe [...] but history shows money related not to quality..."
I asked them to "bite the hand", quoting the original motto of the site. And "do not swim with the sharks"...
The Register's position was that the advertisers or partners had no impact; To quote, "well I'm happy to tell you that the sponsored content is handled by a completely separate team from editorial, the journalists. that's not to say the sponsored product is bad, we put a lot of effort into it to make it worthwhile for our clients. but none of journalists are involved nor are they aware of what's being advertised / run until it's live" (whereupon everyone can see it).
But "it is Utopian," I told them, as "they are part of the same "organism" [...] the lipstick does not change the pig [...] I worked in media ages ago"...
They didn't exactly deny this, "but we have a clear separation, and crossing that line internally is a no-no," they said (also said yes, acknowledging the above).
"I saw how the ads led to censorship and then self-censorship," I told them, "I think you can sleep over it [...] and think how your writers feel [...] in terms of 6th sense [...] and job security..."
I took SJVN as an example because "sjvn writes for El Reg [...] he also did LF [Linux Foundation] gigs [...] in another site [...] that's a conflict [...] he cannot write some things without risking gigs elsewhere..."
Imagine SJVN writing a critical Linux Foundation piece in The Register. He would risk losing his other gigs, in Linux Foundation-sponsored (bribed) sites. So he just won't go there; instead he's likely to just parrot OIN, LF and other corporate front groups, including IBM's.
Can journalism and honest reporting be done under these conditions? The capital flows from the companies one is meant to criticise. They're buying silence. Or silence at the very least (compulsory puff piece tend to follow).
By The Register I was told, "we're not a publisher beholden to public shareholders; we're still owned by the same 3 guys and they give us free rein to say what we want. we like working here because we know that other places aren't as independent..."
The "same 3 guys," I said, "but not the founder [...] he did not agree with your direction [...] you did not cover his death, AFAIK [...] we checked everywhere [...] only nick [Nick Farrell] mentioned his death..."
They did not deny that they had ignored the death of their own founder. Instead the conversation went on to covering SJVN some more.
To quote: "SJVN is a freelancer who we pay to write things for us and we edit and run them if they are good enough. what he does in his other time is up to him. if there's a conflict of interest we take it on a case by case basis..."
But they cannot ignore that he's tied to some other businesses and publishers. They said, "we have rules on what people can and can't write about if they have a commercial interest in something. if you think anyone's crossed that, let me know. eg on SJVN's about page we disclose he advises a firm that has a client connected to Rocky Linux" (there's lots more).
I explained to them that "he has his own blog [...] but barely uses it [...] so he is beholden to sponsors (the publishers') [...] days ago [an] obligatory puff piece right there with his name on it [...] they made sam varghese do the same [and] he is gone now" (no articles for half a year; that's over 6 months now).
About SJVN and companies he is connected to (through publishers), I said "he covers them [..] without disclosing that" (conflict). And "days ago he did this puff piece [...] "in partnership with..."" (see screenshots at the bottom).
But the "thing is," they told me, "if ZD Net wants to run that kind of thing, it can. you don't see us doing it. I suppose it's no surprise I'm not a massive fan of ZDNet, we've always been rivals..."
But "do not become zdnet," I advised them, as "you are close to it [...] but they are Red Ventures [1, 2] [...] literally a marketing company..."
Their response to this was fair: "I don't think we're anything close to becoming ZDnet, which runs stories like top 10 washing machines for 2025 [...] we got no need to, we're not into affiliate marketing and B2C, that's scrambling around in the pennies left over by Facebook..."
Well, "not yet," I responded, but "look at the trajectory of WWW [...] it's really saddening [...] it's getting so bad govt. pass laws against access to it [...] for kids, for now [and] there are still many stories you miss".
We can agree that ZDNet is miles worse, but they've failed to convince me that corporate money (for their writers, who are tied to ZDNet sometimes) has no impact on their coverage. There's always room for improvement and independent journalism demands that we reject GAFAM money. Otherwise the coverage is deeply tainted. The screenshots below show that SJVN is paid by snakeoil pushers in "hey hi" (AI) clothing. █
Whatever this "AI" is, it won't save time, it'll waste other people's time (reading slop 'articles', fake E-mails and code/commit messages that don't make sense and cannot be properly reviewed/audited). So SJVN promotes corporate gaslighting of people. How disappointing.