• by David L. Smith , June 10, 2002

Last week, one of the respondents to my column commented that it must have been a “slow news day”. Make no mistake, the information below is NOT news. Online Spin is a place for opinion, not news. And now, the opinions…

Last month, a “news” article by BusinessMedia, “reported” that the OPA Study of Online Ad/TV Synergy was misleading. Interesting topic, so I read on. (Full disclosure, I advised [sans compensation] the OPA on this research.)

I found two major things wrong with the article: 1) They did not know what they were talking about and 2) They took their opinion (fueled by a note from ONE “critical reader”) and turned it into “news.” I’ll deal with both of these issues, first the actual research.

The research as mounted by the OPA, and was modeled after traditional TV DAR (Day After Recall) research. The general purpose of this research is self-descriptive. An advertiser generally does DAR testing to determine the recall against their target of the advertising in question. Recall is the one of the early steps in creating awareness, the holy grail of brand advertising. The advertiser doing the testing, in this case the Air Force, has a very specific target audience: Adults 18-24. The Business Media article states that the research was “irresponsible” and “potentially misleading” due to sampling only against a young target. It goes further to imply that this research should have sampled everybody in order to not be skewed towards those who are predisposed to the Internet.

This is a classic case of a writer and newsletter clearly out of their league. It is a business media newsletter commenting on consumer media research tactics. Where is their expertise? If they knew what they were talking about, the single thread of target demographics that they based their article on would not even be considered.

Now to the second point, which is editorial integrity. BusinessMedia had the temerity to accuse the OPA of bias and lacking in integrity. Yet they violated journalistic integrity themselves.

They “reported” as news what was clearly an opinion from one reader.

They make their whole newsletter to be a place of factual information, when it is simply one writer or editor’s opinion.

They did no apparent fact checking or consulting with any expert who knew what they were talking about

And, they decided to pick on the OPA, a group of sites who ALL have regular writers, editors and sites who distinguish between fact and opinion.

BTW-I tried to find a site supporting this “newsletter” and none exists. It is simply a newsletter with some ads that has no other visible relationship to the Internet, other than to critique work that others are doing.

The Internet has enough problems without endorsing such drivel. We should all opt-out and refuse to buy advertising sponsoring irresponsible journalism. There is enough good stuff out there. Put your money and time into quality.

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