dollar price tag necessary to finance even a bare bones representation in Geneva would take a significant bite out of their public coffers. While expansion of the free market has increased world wealth overall, the privilege to play in that market still comes at a price few developing countries can afford.
Advertorials -- or advertisements designed to look like newspaper or magazine articles -- are an ever-growing hybrid that blur the lines between editorials and paid advertising. For advertisers, the haze left in the wake of this intentional line-crossing is a bonus, since readers are apt to mistake an advertorial for objectively-reported news -- or worse.
Often, advertorials take on the character of the publication's own views on a product or issue. Hence, an advertorial can create the appearance that editorial and advertising policy effectively work toward excluding those views with which the publication's editorial staff disagrees. Critics claim that, ultimately, a publication's editorial views will start reflecting positions that are good for attracting advertising.
The ethical debate concerning the propriety of advertorials is not new. In a skirmish raised nearly seven years ago, The New York Times came under fire for an advertorial promoting the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In response to the piece, Edwin Baker, a University of Pennsylvania law professor, collaborated with other professors and media critics in a letter to Times executive editor, Max Frankel, wherein he criticized The Times for an advertorial promoting the controversial NAFTA. Baker expressed doubts that The Times would solicit ads based on a view that the paper opposed editorially, and feared that such a practice would result in the paper's editorial pages producing opinions particularly good for proselytizing advertising business. Such a practice would culminate in an unwritten policy whereby ads representing only one side o...