To Save Journalism, We Have To Fix Advertising
This Saturday afternoon, I was on Facebook, and I noticed that Stephen Colbert was “trending.” I was a big fan of “The Colbert Report,” but have admittedly never seen a full episode of Colbert’s “The Late Show,” possibly because, for whatever reason, their videos rarely show up in my news feed.
This video must be exceptionally good, I thought, and clicked through to another Facebook page where posts regarding the video were listed. Many of the posts were articles about the video, rather than the video itself, and it took a few seconds for me to identify The Late Show’s official post that linked straight to the video.
I typically prefer watching videos on an official page because I know the quality will be high. I mean, it’s 2016 — I don’t have the patience for anything less than full HD. But that quality often comes with a price. This time, CBS.com decided to let me watch two thirds of the eight-minute video before cutting off with this message:
Were it any other content, I would have closed the page immediately and moved on, gone back to Facebook, or checked out the front page on Reddit to fill my time-waste craving. But this was Stephen Colbert at his finest, employing a technique from his Daily Show days where he moderates a “debate” between Donald Trump and, well, Donald Trump, in which the candidate contradicts himself on several subjects.
I wanted to see the end. So I did something I never do, I clicked the stop-sign-shaped icon in the corner of my browser and turned off Ad Block Plus, and refreshed the page as CBS suggested.
I was rewarded by a glitchy, slow-loading 90 seconds in which I saw the page attempt to load two separate automobile ads, start playing the Colbert video, then cut off and finally play an ad for a Disney vacation before getting to the content I wanted, which I then had to scrub through to find the place where I was cut off initially.
I wish I could say this was a rare occurrence. Too often, I am forced to reload browser windows due to glitching advertisements, leading me to wonder, “How is this 30-second ad taking longer to buffer than a 60-minute Netflix episode?”
Is this system really the reason corporations want my data, so that they can fail to load advertisements that hold absolutely no value to me? I’m not a complicated consumer. What little money I do have, I spend on gas, pizza, fast food, and the occasional splurge on a concert or sporting event.
I’m a single graduate student, I’m not in the market for a new car or a family vacation. Don’t these data hoarders know even the simplest thing about me? Here’s a free hint: I’m particularly sensitive to food advertisements. I don’t even like Taco Bell, really, but show me a steaming Dorito Taco on screen and I’m Pavlov’s dog.
I worked in advertising for a time, and I often enjoy the short narratives and experiments in culture that come with ad campaigns. I understand that in any kind of content creation, we rely on advertising dollars to put roofs over our heads. And I honestly don’t mind watching a 30-second advertisement before a two-minute video if I have to, but the system as it is now seems stuck in a rut of stupidity, at best, or manipulatively infuriating at worst.
Take for example MSNBC, which I am currently watching via stream through their site. Since it’s live TV, there are commercial breaks. But instead of showing commercials to their streaming viewers, they play a repetitive drum-and-bass beat over this image:
Dear MSNBC: feel free to show me commercials during your commercial breaks. The worst that could happen is maybe I’ll mute them while I surf Facebook or Reddit. Probably not though, because I haven’t bothered to mute your dumb music. But whatever you do, don’t mimic what WatchESPN has been doing lately, playing nearly identical Time Warner Cable commercials on repeat, every single break:
Take the hint Time Warner, we’re done.
And while I’m on the subject, Time Warner, you know who you sound like? South Park’s portrayal of BP CEO Tony Hayward, but somehow less sincere.
But I digress.
At least Time Warner recognizes where its customers are going. So why aren’t other advertisers drooling over live, streaming video like MSNBC and WatchESPN? Are the cable companies holding you hostage? Blink twice if Comcast is hurting you but you’re afraid to tell anyone.
More and more people are cutting cords, and I don’t know a single person my age that intentionally pays for a premium cable subscription without being forced into bundling for high-speed internet.
As the field of journalism goes through this period of change, it has to embrace the new opportunities that come with streaming video, leave behind outdated hindrances, and dictate the terms of advertising that lead people to use adblock software, or close windows due to time-wasting glitches, pop-ups and click-interceptors (like when I’m about to click on a link but the page shifts right before and I accidentally click on an ad? Don’t pretend you’re not doing that on purpose, jerks).
We ad-blockers aren’t the ones killing journalism. We are the resistance against frustrating and malicious advertising practices that don’t benefit products or consumers. And we are consumers — we want to be sold things. I haven’t eaten anything today, partially because I can’t decide what to eat. If only a Dorito Taco would appear on my screen to motivate me.
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