Dangers of crossing the advertorial line
Historically, boundaries have been blurred between real news stories and government promotion of policies; with the new media trend of ‘native’ ads, they’ve become invisible
The communications unit was set up by the Fine Gael-led coalition to provide a more strategic message from the government of Ireland. Funding and staffing were initially intended to be very modest, but rose starkly.
It wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with the provincial media, but then it started placing copy in local papers; sometimes it disguised its copy to run as normal features. Fianna Fáil attacked it. The media poured ...
