http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2010/06/office_chair_en.html
This article, posted on Boston.com today, made me wonder about what's journalism, and what isn't. Is this article news? An advertisement? Humor? I must confess, that I personally have found desk chair envy to be alive and well in the workplace for reasons of both comfort and status. But I feel the references to celebrity chair-envy sound like creative license on the part of the author. And, I wonder, is one info source enough?
It does feel like an unpaid (hopefully) ad for Staples. The research is from Staples and the products are from Staples. It is very self-serving. Had the research been from the Pew Institute, I would be less suspicious of its motives.
ReplyDeleteInteresting!
ReplyDeleteIn a recent PR workshop, our lecturer argued that a significant amount of the material in newspapers (especially local ones) originate from press releases from PR teams. Staples’ PR team have done a good job here – they got a whole paragraph about the Kronos deskchair in the article along with a picture!
Not too sure how robust the research their research is – only surveying Twitter followers?? A little off the topic – but found a blog which provides a bit more insight into what the average Twitter user demographic:
Source: http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/law_librarian_blog/2009/02/a-demographic-p.html
“Twitter users are overwhelmingly young. However, unlike the majority of other applications with a similarly large percentage of youth, Twitter use is not dominated by the youngest of young adults. Indeed, the median age of a Twitter user is 31. In comparison, the median age of a MySpace user is 27, Facebook user is 26 and LinkedIn user is 40.7.
35% of Twitter users living in urban areas (compared to 29% of all internet users) and just 9% of Twitterers and status updaters living in rural areas, compared to 17% of internet users”
Guess it’s an example of how PR teams can use ‘research’ to help generate news coverage.
This story makes me wonder about its origin. The use of surveys is often used in journalism (of course), but I wonder if the division between editorial and advertising departments is as well-defined as it ought to be.
ReplyDeleteWould have made for a better read had they tied in more research ... this maybe would have detracted from such blatant blurring of the editorial/ad. division.
Initially, the use of the use of the photo, along with the retail price being highlighted, bothered me. The more I think about it, the Globe could always claim both were used to illustrate the "status symbolism" of office chairs mentioned in the piece. Even that is a stretch.
A miss for the Globe, for sure.
Good catch on that, Abby. That was definitely a PR concoction released by Staples. I was waiting to hear: "...and research shows that 4 out of 5 co-workers wish they had a Kronos, because they say 'the sleek, sexy, comfy chair' exudes 'confidence and clout'."
ReplyDeleteVery clever Staples!
I work in the PR world currently, and have pitched surveys to get press for companies I have worked for, similar to this. To play devils advocate, I'd point out that this appears in the Business Updates ticker -- not all of Boston.com should necessarily be taken in the same context. The purpose of this column/feed, as far as I understand it, is to push out news from local companies, which is essentially directly taken from PR pitches, as folks have said. While this particular example feels a little too ad-like to me, I agree, it should not necessarily be held to the same standards as the articles front and center on the homepage, in my opinion. I would argue that the world of online news allows for much more distinction between sections/purposes of sections. In a physical paper, it is more difficult to make those distinctions, I think...
ReplyDelete