Brand Journalism is a word you hear often but may not
actually know the meaning of. To some it is a great thing and helps bring in
revenue, while others say it does not following the true meaning of being
journalism. These people can be divided into two categories: Traditional
journalists and brand journalism. Traditional journalism follows older
foundations set at the beginning if journalism. While brand journalism looks at
a new approach to still making money while being a journalist. This is what has
caused the controversy between both roles, but while it may be bad there has
been some good too. There are just as many negatives as there are positives, it
just takes a reader who can tell the different and come to the appropriate
thought.
To
understand why brand journalism is controversial you must first understand what
traditional journalism is and why they view the other side the way they do.
Traditional journalism works by gathering information, assessing, creatingstories, and making sure these stories help readers make the best possiblechoice or decision about something. (Cowlin, 2014) This is a time-consuming
process that makes it longer to get a story out to the readers and or viewers
but overall is for the good more than the bad. Traditional journalism follows a
rule referred to as the “Fourth Estate” that sets the standards for journalism
to keep it truthful and informational without personal opinions or thoughts.
This is a major difference between the two, because one feels opinion is
alright to have while the other side sees things differently.
Brand journalism is a form of journalism as used to advertise or persuade readers and or views to a certain direction. It is known for being used alongside content marketing where there is a specific audience in mind and the story is used for profit. (Cowlin, 2014) This types of journalism is used to make a profit which
makes readers and viewers question the ethnicity of the story. Though some of
these stories are just marketing ads that help to sell items or benefit a
company. The issue with this though is that even though a company pays for
their brand to have a good image if the company is a bad company overall it
will not help them. They can have all the positive feedback and advertising and
stories they want but if a customer calls into a call center just to spend
hours waiting to solve an issue then it truly does not help the company.
While the
difference between these two are great if you combine them, and use the
strengths from both sides you will be able to get a strong story with the
correct view. A journalist is a good starting point for branding, they know how to find a story, be a team player, and they understand where their job description begins and ends. This leave for the perfect opening of a brand journalist to let the journalists be journalists but then step in the associate the story or subject into a conversation where it makes the subject look good.They can provide constructive feedback that is beneficial for developing the story or brand they are working on. If these two forms worked together they
could create a powerful story with good views but this is where the trouble
lies.
Journalists
want to give you a story and you can form your own personal opinion on it.
While a Brand Journalist wants to persuade you to a side. This is what they are
paid to do and this is also the reason they are seen negatively. You must
question how real a story is when someone is being paid to make something look
a certain way. We have seen this a lot during the last election. When a party
is paying someone to make the other party look bad then things will be taken
out of context. It was so bad during the election that they had to start
running statements each party said about the other through fact checking sites.
This is where you can see that just people you are being paid for a story, when
you put in personal opinion you can have devastating results on someone’s life
or goal. This was made known more now than ever but it was also made known the
fact people are not able to tell the difference in these types of stories. This
tells you we have some good journalists out there who can take false facts and
turn them truthful all because they convinced one person to share a story.
Brand
journalism will only continue to grow. They have mastered how to use the
internet to advertise and tell their stories. They have mastered getting news
out quickly, and to make it eye catching to who their intended viewers are. The
viewers are just going to have to become better at telling truth from false
because in this world the quicker the news is released the better your ratings.
References
Burg, N. (2014, May 14). Journalists vs. Marketers: How to
Ease Tension Inside Brand Newsrooms — The Content Strategist. Retrieved
December 11, 2016, from
https://contently.com/strategist/2014/05/14/journalists-vs-marketers-how-to-ease-tension-inside-brand-newsrooms/
Cowlin, M. (2015, January 12). Why the Controversy?
Traditional and Brand Journalists Need to Hug it Out - Thismoment Content
Marketing Blog. Retrieved December 11, 2016, from
http://www.thismoment.com/content-marketing-blog/brand-journalist/
Wandrick, J. (2015, August 22). Color Her Fierce. Retrieved
December 11, 2016, from
http://jwandrick.wixsite.com/colorherfierce/single-post/2015/08/22/Journalist-On-Two-Sides-of-A-Great-Divide-Controversy
