CNN.com Slips Ads Into News Slots

from the desperate-times... dept

Taking a page from the shifty search engine playbook, CNN.com, in their desperation for revenue, has started selling text ads that run alongside story headlines. According to this article, some people are getting confused. I went and looked briefly at CNN.com, but couldn't find any of the ads, so either they're not always there, or they're so well integrated that I completely missed them. On the whole, though, I think it does their readers a disservice to try to "slip in" advertisements. It certainly lessens the credibility of what people will expect to find when searching for the latest news at CNN.
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  1. identicon
    Hughman, 17 Oct 2002 @ 7:45am

    No Subject Given

    CNN, FOX News and MSNBC are owned by ENTERTAINMENT companies. How can they be viewed as serious unbiased news outlets?

    The "mega-ultimate-super-platinum corporations" that own them certainly have final say on what they can and cannot report.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    LordSlakyr, 17 Oct 2002 @ 7:53am

    Re: No Subject Given

    Gosh! That's a pretty cynical view...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Oct 2002 @ 3:03pm

    Re: No Subject Given

    You got it wrong. Its "mega-super-hyper-ultimate-platinum".

    I don't think the small outlets are any better. Stories are released based on someones opinion. Due to the politising of absolutely everything you're bound to get a slant one way our the other. All other stories are to scare you. If you feel threatened you'll watch more or read more papers. The problem is that revenue is far more important than integrity.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Hartti, 17 Oct 2002 @ 4:18pm

    The ads are there, but marked as ads

    The text ads are still there, but on gray background, using different font, and marked as advertisement. At least now it sems that mixing these with the real content is pretty hard.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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