3 chapters across the catalog
The rise of native advertising—ads designed to look like editorial content—is discussed as a threat to traditional journalism. Politico recently hired a "native officer" to lead its branded content department, following the lead of The Washington Post and The Atlantic. The hosts argue that outlets like Vice are essentially advertising agencies disguised as news organizations, where high production budgets are used to obfuscate the promotional nature of the content.
The hosts examine the growth of the native advertising industry, where agencies like MediaVest create content that looks like news. They argue this corruption makes it impossible to get uncorrupted information from mainstream outlets that rely on massive ad budgets from companies like Capital One.
Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak open the 527th episode of No Agenda on July 4, 2013. They discuss a viral Twitter trend where users mistakenly believe the United States is 2013 years old. Technical difficulties occur as Skype begins playing loud, unprompted advertisements directly into the audio mixer.
