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Is Brand Journalism A Lie? Chrysler Twitter Episode Answers

Bob Garfield examines the oxymoron of brand journalism, which in this case means brands as social-media brokers of content about themselves. He says Chrysler's cutting off its social-media agency after one of its employees tweeted on the Chrysler account about Detroit drivers belies the truth about brands' attempts via social platforms to look (or actually be) transparent, spontaneous and conversational. "Fired him for being funny. Fired him for being spontaneous. Fired him for being relevant. Fired him for alighting ever so gently, like a canary taking its perch, on a dowel of human truth. You know -- the way social media is supposed to be, because the whole point of it is to discard archaic and abrasive concepts of messaging in favor of actual conversations. Not stilted conversations based on 140-character ads but actual exchanges among flesh-and-blood non-automatons."

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