Christianity Today Shilling for Universal Pictures and Blurring Several Lines

I received the latest issue of Christianity Today this week. I admit to being a bit confused at first. Front and center under the normal CT banner was Steve Carrell dressed as Noah, surrounded by animals and backed by an ark. At first I thought, "Finally, CT is getting serious about popular culture and they're doing a cover on religious films." Then I opened the magazine and saw the real cover inside the advertisement. I finally noticed the word "advertisement" above and to the right of the CT banner on the cover. The entire cover, front and back, was an ad for Evan Almighty mocked up as a CT cover.

It's not unusual for magazines to wrap their product in an ad. Books & Culture does it pretty regularly, and they are CT's sister publication. Usually though, B&C is advertising for subscription renewals or gift subscriptions. The ad is obviously an ad; even the paper stock is different. The CT ad though is a different matter. Am I worried that someone will be fooled into believing this is the real cover? No. Am I quibbling? Possibly. Is this that big a deal? Maybe not. But blurring the line between advertising and content is an ongoing problem with magazines.

By featuring the Universal Pictures film as the cover of their magazine, including their own banner, is CT making a tacit or even explicit recommendation? I've never gone for the argument that religious groups make that churches or ministries ought not advertise in magazines with objectionable material: adult ads, massage parlors, strip clubs, etc. The reasoning being, if you're trying to advertise for people who aren't Christian or who might need whatever ministry you provide, why would you not advertise in a publication they actually read? Most churches use the Yellow Pages, after all, and you can't control the content of the Yellow Pages: whorehouses, strip clubs, liquor stores, attorneys--it's all there. However, advertising in magazines is usually set off from content, and the line between an ad and a story or editorial content ought to be clearly demarcated.

I have no idea how much Universal or one of the other four distribution companies paid for the ad. I'm sure it was a substantial amount for CT to even consider the idea, and a full-color ad on the front and back of a national magazine has to cost more than a little. So what does CT think of the movie? It ought to matter since they've loaned their name to Universal for the ad. Maybe we'll have an editorial or publisher's letter that explains the reasoning. I sincerely hope that no one at CT has anything to do with the production of the explicity religious film. That too probably needs to be answered. Credibility is an expensive commodity to lose, and CT is precariously near the edge of losing credibility when they blur the line between journalism and marketing.

Comments

[dorsey]

I'm not sure how I feel about it. Have you flipped through a copy of Wired lately? It's getting harder to distinguish content from marketing (maybe it's middle age, lol).

How much does the christian worldview of the magazine affect your level of discomfort? I mean, would you have the same reaction if the fake cover was on, say, Rolling Stone? I only ask because, at a gut level, I think maybe it does bug me more that a "christian" magazine might have crossed this line. In my head, though I know it shouldn't matter. Still...

[greg]

Dorsey,

Since I write for pay, I'm a little more sensitive about this than some folks. It probably does bug me a little more that it's a Christian magazine, but as a faithful reader of the Columbia Journalism Review, it bugs me at a professional level as well. I don't see legit magazines like Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, or CJR using the same tactics.

[RheaDogg]

I think it is funny that you put attorneys with whorehouses, strip clubs, and liquor stores.

[TCz]

I remember the day when I had my laundry list of lamentable things that I had no remedy for... I gave that up when I discovered that not caring is just as valuable as caring in most situations.

[Kyle]

I found it tacky - I kind of want a better basis to complain about it, but we'll leave it at tacky. ;0)

[dorsey]

"I don't see legit magazines like Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, or CJR using the same tactics."

Why is that? Do you think that the magazines you mentioned are, to some degree, the arbiters of relevance? Anything labelled "christian" seems already saddled with the burden of proof when it comes to credibility. It's as if a "christian" magazine has to position itself in the stream of relevance already created by the more mainstream journalistic culture. Maybe? (Just observing out loud.)

[Leighton]

Have you flipped through a copy of Wired lately? It's getting harder to distinguish content from marketing.

It really is, which is why I don't read it in print anymore. (That, and between the weird placements of page numbers and the inherent difficulty in finding the table of contents, it's too annoying to find what I'm actually interested in reading.) Still, you can argue that this doesn't undercut Wired's purpose as the People Magazine of tech culture--it'll keep you up on the gossip if you don't have the time to follow a dozen or more specialized technology blogs.

It could be that CT is opting to go this same route--aiming for less analysis and reflection and more toward giving you an exhaustive (if shallow) survey of what your self-proclaimed Christian coworker is likely to want to strike up a conversation about. Better to be in the loop about a lot of things than to understand a few things, might be the notion. But I don't have much experience with CT, apart from an old roommate's observation that they're promiscuous with their mailing lists.

[bobstevens]

Posting late... according to one of the movie reviewers for CT, there are actually four ad-wrap covers. Also there's an editor's note about the covers inside the issue.

I don't read CT but I e-know several people who write for it. I don't really have an opinion on this, except that maybe it's in bad taste and a violation of the "in the world but not of the world" principle... who knows.

Arts and Faith is a discussion board not strictly affiliated with CT, however many of CT's critics frequent it. I'm going to link to this post in their thread on Evan Almighty , in which there's been some discussion about the CT cover, here:

http://artsandfaith.com/index.php?showtopic=9898