Dear readers,
One of our priorities at Poynter is chronicling the ever-changing business models used to support journalism around the world.
One of these industry-wide shifts is the trend toward native advertising — paid-for promotional messages from brands that use the trappings of journalistic storytelling to engage their audiences. These advertisements are often formatted to be more visually appealing than traditional display advertisements in a bid to capture and hold the audience’s attention.
Here at Poynter, we aren’t just covering the industry. Like many of the organizations we cover, Poynter is constantly seeking new forms of revenue to support our mission of providing instructive coverage of the changing business of journalism. That’s why, starting today, you’ll begin seeing native advertising appear on our website. The ads will be clearly labeled as advertorial content, set off with a blue headline and distinguished with a specially designed byline that looks different from ones that appear elsewhere at Poynter.org.
One other thing: No one on Poynter’s editorial staff — including me — has a hand in conceiving, producing or editing these advertisements. They are created independently of our news report, so you can be sure that we’re focused on delivering you news without influence from our advertisers. That being said, I do hope you’ll check out some of these ads and let us know what you think. For Poynter to be successful, we need you to be engaged with everything we publish — including our ads.
Sincerely,
Benjamin Mullin
Managing Editor
