Grade the News

Evaluating print and broadcast news in the San Francisco Bay Area from A to F.

Posted 6/20/03

Reporting the News in ANG's HomeSite Tabloid Section

The ultimate form of letting advertising drive "news" is to let representatives paid by retailers actually write news copy.

Grade the News found a story and photo on an advertorial--ads masquerading as news--Web site that is identical to the story and photo run in HomeSite's Oakland Tribune and Alameda Times-Star editions on May 31. The articles promote Loctite products. Loctite is a trade name of Henkel Consumer Adhesives, Inc.

The only difference we found between the two was that HomeSite misspelled the name of the advertorial packaging company. It's NAPSI for North American Precis Syndicate Inc., not NAPSA.

NAPSI, headquartered at the Empire State Building in New York City, is paid by retailers and others who want promotional material embedded in apparent news articles and supplies "Featurettes" to news media without charge.

Here is a screen shot from NAPSNET.com, followed by the HomeSite article from ANG:

--John McManus

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A project of the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at San Jose State University, Grade the News is affiliated with the Graduate Program in Journalism at Stanford University and KTEH, public television in Silicon Valley.

Monitoring the Bay Area's most popular news media:

Knight Ridder

Hearst

Knight Ridder

KTVU, Oakland (FOX)

KRON, San Francisco

KPIX, San Francisco (CBS)

KGO, San Francisco (ABC)

KNTV, San Jose (NBC)

Bay Area media advocates:

Media Alliance

Center for the Integration and Improvement of Journalism at SFSU

Maynard Institute

Youth Media Council

Project Censored

New California Media

Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California chapter

National Writers Union Bay Area chapter

Site highlights

THE GROWTH OF FREE NEWSPAPERS

The three-part series follows the rise of three Bay Area handouts:
• Part 1: At free dailies, advertisers sometimes call the shots
• Part 2: Free daily papers: more local but often superficial
• Part 3: Free papers' growth threatens traditional news
• See also: SF Examiner and Independent agree to end payola restaurant reviews
• And: The free tabloid that wasn't: East Bay's aborted Daily Flash

FATE OF KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS

Lou Alexander started a firestorm with his original guest commentary predicting the company would be sold. Several other experts on newspapers have weighed in:
• Newspapers can't cut their way back into Wall Street investors' hearts, by Stephen R. Lacy; Alexander responds
• Humbler profits won't encourage buyouts, by John Morton; Alexander responds
• Newspapers can't maintain monopoly profits because they've lost their monopolies, by Philip Meyer
• Knight Ridder in grave jeopardy, by Lou Alexander...

KQED-FM AUDIO PERSPECTIVES BY JOHN MCMANUS

• Leakers and plumbers: There's no difference between a good leak and a bad leak? Journalists need a shield law. 11/22/05
• Unintended consequences: How Craigslist and similar services are sucking revenue from faltering newspapers. 9/13/05
• Is CPB irrelevant? As Congress moves to cut public broadcasting funds, has CPB become obsolete in the modern marketplace. 6/26/05
• The paradox of news: There's more news available and its cheaper than ever before, but fewer young people are interested. 5/12/05

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