Beware the advertorials

Next time you read an article praising a health product, scrutinise it closely. It could be an advertorial: written by a journalist, but secretly tailored to promote a company that has paid for the plug either directly or by agreeing to place an ad in the paper in question.

Recently, the Daily Express by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) was found guilty of running such advertorials for products purporting to help with obesity, arthritis and menopause. In the case of the arthritis product, for instance, the tabloid ran a piece about the mother of the TV celeb Christopher Biggins, who said her stiff joints had been eased by copper orthotics. The same article appeared four times in ten weeks with different headlines. Each time, it was accompanied by a formal ad for Orthotics Online, the company that makes the copper shoe inserts.

The reason newspapers are resorting to such tactics is simple: they’re short of cash. Advertising revenues are predicted to fall by 25% this year. And this can lead to another kind of journalistic malpractice: the tarted-up press release. Bombarded with faxes and emails about health-related surveys (which may or may not be sound, but make good copy), hacks take the short cut of running the material more or less as it is.

In other words, health firms get free advertising, editors a cheap way to fill their pages. Unlike covert advertorials, these barely altered press releases cannot be targeted by the ASA, since they break no advertising law. But they are no less contrary to the spirit of good science reporting.