The Atlantic, making the New Yorker look good, almost

The Atlantic magazine is in hot water for publishing “Sponsor Content” (aka “native advertising”) in the form of a fake article touting the “religion” of Scientology as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Perhaps even more embarrassing for the 150-year-old mag, the Scientology folks evidently conspired to fill the comments section with gee-whiz remarks along the lines of “Wow, Scientology sounds fascinating! I really learned a lot from this article!”*

According to New York magazine, Atlantic publisher Jay Lauf has been promoting native advertising as pretty much the future of online magazines. “A lot of people worry about crossing editorial and advertising lines, but I think it respects readers more. It’s saying, ‘You know what you’re interested in.’ It’s more respectful of the reader that way.”

“You know what you’re interested in”? Or “We’ll publish anything”?

Afterwords
How does the New Yorker fit into all of this? In the past I’ve made fun of the New Yorker’s fondness for “advertorials”—special sections of the magazine with fake articles intended to complement the advertising around them. Last August, I wrote about an advertorial that appeared in the magazine, sponsored by the University of Phoenix, bragging about a conference Drive-Thru U had co-sponsored with the New Yorker. I guess the Atlantic hasn’t quite caught up with Eustace Tilly, but they’re getting close.