Google has come under fire in the Observer recently in a series of investigations that revealed how rightwingers had manipulated the search engine’s algorithms to create a sinister new reality, particularly around Holocaust denial, Muslims and women, with hate sites such as Stormfront finding their way to the top of search rankings. After nearly a month of pressure, Google, which initially resisted making any changes, eventually bumped the white supremacists out of the way – on some searches, at least.
Google’s late move came after the Observer had found a way to push the neo-Nazis down the rankings: for £289, the paper placed an advertisement at the top of search results about the Holocaust. “The Holocaust really happened,” said the advert. “Six million Jews really did die. These search results are propagating lies. Please take action.”
Carole Cadwalladr, the Observer journalist who broke the story, wrote that the company had shown that it would not respond to outrage or public sentiment “but it was prepared to take my cold, hard cash… I did it with the only language that Google understands: money”.
Her latest piece in the series filled page 3 on 18 December, our last issue before Christmas. And yet that same issue appeared, not with a traditional front page but with a four-page “wraparound” advertisement for Google’s new Pixel phone. Readers were understandably bemused.
“There was a delicious irony in the lambasting of Google for responding to ‘the only language it understands: money’ when the Observer allowed an advertisement for Google’s Pixel phone to hijack its front, back and inside covers. Money does indeed talk,” was a typical response.
“I am writing to say how disappointed I was to see a wraparound advert for Google rather than your normal front page,” another reader wrote. “After last week’s articles regarding Google’s algorithms, with even more reports in this edition [18 December], it seems that you are supporting Google in what it does.
“I know that advertising money is required by newspapers but by selling such a large advert, your reports appear to be undermined and your readers are getting mixed messages as to what the Observer stands for.”
Another wrote of his “considerable dismay” on seeing the advert. “I was struck by the irony, given the previous edition contained an excellent article by Carole Cadwalladr (“Google, democracy and the truth about internet search”).
“Indeed, the Observer has not been afraid to criticise Google for failing to pay what is deemed to be its fair share of taxation in this country. So, perhaps you can imagine my surprise to see the Observer implicitly endorsing Google (specifically, its Pixel phone); more importantly, I wonder if you are able to provide an explanation? Otherwise the Observer leaves itself open to criticisms of hypocrisy.”
This is perhaps a textbook example of the strict separation that exists between a newspaper’s advertising and editorial departments. Of course, advertising helps pay for the journalism that you read here every week, but the revenue it brings in should never sway the independence of the editorial team and its output.
And it is important to remember that the appearance of an advertisement is not an indication that the paper endorses the advertised product.
Google’s Pixel phone campaign has run in every national newspaper for some weeks, so it was not exceptional for the Observer to take it; indeed, advertisements for the phone had already appeared in the paper before 18 December and we can expect to see more in 2017, both in print and online.
The editor knew in advance that the four-page wraparound was booked but saw no need to change editorial plans. “Google obviously knew we had been running these pieces about them but they were not deterred from advertising and, in turn, we were not deterred from placing a story critical of them in a prominent position in the same issue,” he said.
There are, however, wider questions about the disruptive nature of today’s advertising. As newspaper revenues shrink, advertisers are becoming bolder in their demands. The editor believes cover wraps of any nature disturb the balance and flow of a newspaper and kill the impact of its front page; they should be accepted only rarely, despite the commercial pressures faced by the industry.
And yet despite all this, advertising revenues continue to shrink. In 2014-15, global newspaper circulation revenues overtook advertising revenues for the first time, with the 2016 World Press Trends report showing that $90bn (53% of revenue) came from print and digital circulation, compared with $78bn from advertising.
And while readers point to the paradox of a newspaper taking advertising from a company that it also attacks within its own pages, there is a further irony: newspaper websites are seeing a slowing in advertising growth because revenue is going not to the news producers that bear the cost of coverage, but to the platforms that pick it up: chiefly Facebook – and Google.
observer.readers@observer.co.uk
