mydigimedia by Amy L. Webb

I was clicking through parts of the philly.com site just now and came upon what I thought was a strange ad:

Now, I'm the last person to advocate for restriction of speech, especially online. But I was more than surprised to see a banner ad advertising for a free pass to a live show attached to the website of Philadelphia's paper of record.

(Warning: Links below contain mature, adult content.)

I clicked on the ad, and it took me to an image for a free pass to Fantasy Showbar, a club in New Jersey. Naturally, I clicked on the image and found that I'd gotten a free club pass, courtesy of Philly.com, to either Fantasy Showbar or Club CanCan.

And then I went to the club website. The homepage offers three naked women, and I'm apparently one click away from watching what looks like a teenager masturbate on her bed. Clicking anywhere else on the site will take you directly to extremely explicit photos and videos.

I'm not going to make any judgment on the good or bad of sex sites. Like I said, I believe that speech should be free and that a reasonable forum should be provided for that kind of content.

But I am going to address the way that newspapers are offering content online. I believe what philly.com is offering to its users as an advertisement represents a real problem in mainstream journalism.

Here's why: Would the Philadelphia Inquirer, on A-1 or even inside the paper, display an advertisement of three women actively using sex toys? Would NPR run underwriting for a sex club with audio of a couple in action? Yes, editorial and advertising departments are meant to be separate, but there's an obvious reason that you don't see these kinds of ads in the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune and so on.

Why is it that a second standard appears to apply to the online sites for major news organizations? If the Inquirer or Daily News wouldn't run an ad like this in the print edition, why is it suddenly okay to run it online...where, in just three clicks, I can get explicit (and I mean hard-core, explicit) adult photos and videos?

When I work with my clients, especially those who are larger media companies, I advise them that they can't just think of online content in terms of an article. Content under that company's banner includes everything on the site. Links (internal and external). Photos. YouTube videos. GoogleAds. Comments left by users.

Publishers have a responsibility to monitor the content not just in their print or broadcast products, but also on their websites. If you ask me, allowing a news site to continue playing second fiddle to the print product is irresponsible. I would venture to say that in the case of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, many more people are using the brand via its website than the newspaper. And we all know that the future of journalism rests within our ability to harness the web.

I hear these arguments all the time from publishers: We shouldn't link externally to sources (even primary sources) because we can't control the content on that website. We don't want to allow unmoderated user commenting because of what someone might say. We can't just allow anyone to upload photos or video to our websites! We have a brand image to protect!

And yet the ad sales department can do what it wants?

I'd seriously like to know what, if any, standards newsrooms are applying to advertisements on their websites, blogs and core print/ broadcast products. What does everyone think? You can also email me your thoughts.

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