{"id":585,"date":"2004-03-05T01:25:37","date_gmt":"2004-03-04T19:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madmanweb.com\/2004\/03\/05\/journalism_or_a\/"},"modified":"2004-03-05T01:25:37","modified_gmt":"2004-03-04T19:55:37","slug":"journalism_or_a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/2004\/03\/journalism_or_a\/","title":{"rendered":"Journalism or advertorial?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest issue of Outlook magazine has a piece titled The
\nBody Electronic<\/i><\/a> that I found… strange.<\/p>\n

It masquerades as an article about exposing the Indian sex sites on the
\nInternet and how they’re hawking women to willing customers. If I didn’t know better, I’d call it an "advertorial" for the sites in
\nquestion. The writer goes all out to provide every last bit of contact
\ninformation for the people involved in this business. <\/p>\n

Examples:<\/p>\n

\n

"Business is good…. Earlier, we had services all over India…but
\nstock was proving to be a problem…we are looking for customers for a
\nlifetime…" ?Sameer, who claims to be an MBA with specialisation in
\nmarketing, on the Mumbai mobile number 098216-86191.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

www.indiasexguide.com, true to its name, is more pan-Indian, giving contact
\ndetails for most big cities.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

In Mumbai, you can contact one Robert or Ashok, reachable at 09819437751,
\nwho will do the needful. The duo has offices in Churchgate and Andheri (W). <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

A registration at the indiatimes.com dating site in Kashyap’s name (Is
\nOutlook ready with my bail money?) led me to Arun, available at 098218-44021.
\n"I can sure provide the service in Delhi. Just call me two hours in
\nadvance," he said. Based in Mumbai, he needs just an hour’s notice there.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

The author concludes with:<\/p>\n

\n

My intention is not to raise awareness about Sameer, Arun, Purnima, Robert,
\nAshok, or their websites. I wouldn’t dream of doing that in a magazine that’s
\nread by my mother. My honest intention is to make cyberspace a little more
\nworthy of our kids’ eyeballs. So I spoke to the cbi about it, whose
\nspokesperson expressed surprise and wanted the addresses of these websites.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Gee, by publishing it in a magazine read by thousands of people, he’s
\ncertainly raised awareness. Just what we need – a journo on a moral crusade who
\nwrites articles like advertorials. If he wanted only the CBI to investigate, he
\ncould’ve given them the mobile numbers in question. What purpose did printing
\nthem in the magazine serve?<\/p>\n

Go read
\nthe article<\/a> and tell me if you too find it stinks a bit. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest issue of Outlook magazine has a piece titled The Body Electronic that I found… strange. It masquerades as an article about exposing the Indian sex sites on the Internet and how they’re hawking women to willing customers. If I didn’t know better, I’d call it an "advertorial" for the sites in question. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[13,14,15,16,17,18],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madmanweb.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}