What to Do About Fake News?

Advertisers and their agencies have an important role to play in this A Twitterbased movement Sleeping Giants is already showing what can be done to quotencouragequotamp160advertisers to boycott sites like Breitbartamp160This is obviously a tricky area Where does freedom of speech stop and spreading of hate startamp160When is an advertiser justified in using his dollars to influence however indirectly an editorial policyClearly any advertisers can decide where to spend their budget If they decideamp160against any particular site or indeed publication or TV show on the basis of content then that is subtly different from using financial clout to drive a particular editorial agendaamp160amp160A couple of weeks ago Rob Norman of GroupM published a good piece on LinkedIn One of Rob39s action points in combating fake news concerns the funding of what he rightly calls quotreal journalismquotquotThe funding model for real journalism and the pursuit of truth need to be seen as a collective responsibilityquot he wrote quotIt39s quite possible that the underlying problem with fake news is the declining resources available to fund real newsquotRob39s point on collective responsibility is well made amp160It39s time that advertisers valued values and didn39t simply see media forms as a way of getting to loads of eyeballs regardless of howamp160Valuing values almost certainly has a price but surely the price is worth paying if one result is the safeguarding of quotreal journalismquotamp160which helps with advertiser benefits such as quotattentionquotamp160and quotengagementquotThe agencies must play their part too It39s easy to talk a client out of paying more but a narrow focus on reach risks some ads appearing where those paying for them would rather they didn39tWe all know that traders will balk at any planning decision that upsets their agency deals or indeed their algorithmic processes thanks to Digiday UK amp160But as we39ve said here many times plans need to drive buys not the other way around amp160It39s time agencies acted on their stated aim being to benefit the advertiser and move on from having traders lead planners by the noseIt would be positive if Rob39s piece evolved into an actioned policy implemented throughout his agencies amp160Rob does point out that his LinkedIn published views are personal Yet he is certainly a major driver of GroupM policyBut personal or not what better way for GroupM to lead by seizing the high ground amp160Building on their verification work to truly consider editorial context in both plans and buys would make for a hopeful start to 2017Click the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this article are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated bloggers

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What to Do About Fake News?

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Brian Jacobs

FEMA and the Ad Council Encourage AANHPI Communities to Enhance Disaster Preparedness in New PSAs - Ad Council InSites

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What to Do About Fake News?

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