The growing trend of media outlets placing links in stories to advertising for products was explored in the Wall Street Journal on Monday by David Kesmodel and Julia Angwin, and their reporting noted that Forbes.com dropped such ads because journalists felt uncomfortable.
Kesmodel and Angwin wrote, “Forbes.com, owned by Forbes Media LLC, tested in-text advertising on its site in the summer and fall of 2004. But the publisher pulled the ads after its reporters complained. ‘While the general feedback from [users and advertisers] was more positive than negative, our editorial staff was very uncomfortable with the concept,’ a Forbes.com spokeswoman said in a statement.”
Later, they noted, “Dow Jones & Co., which publishes The Wall Street Journal Online, Barron’s Online and other Web sites, in addition to this newspaper, won’t run in-text ads, a spokeswoman says. The ads blur the line between advertising and editorial and ‘interrupt the reader’s experience,’ she says.”
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