Editorial Guidelines Nothing New

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The blogging community is up in arms regarding an article in AdAge [registration required] dealing with BP editorial guidelines for print publications. I won't defend BP, but just to add my $0.02 to the conversation, these types of guidelines are in use across the industry and are nothing new. At my first agency job, I had to implement them and deal with them for a particular advertiser, and that was more than 10 years ago. As I understand it, the guidelines had been in effect for several years prior. This is nothing new.

The new twist, however, is that the fact that they exist is now visible to the general public. Admittedly, in my first agency gig, I was taken aback by the existence of editorial guidelines in the first place. Coming from a journalism background, I perceived them as an attempt to influence editorial content. My supervisor told me that this wasn't the case, as we were simply asking for the opportunity to pull the ad away from content that would negatively affect the ad's perception. But I never really bought that. If a publication knows that any editorial coverage that negatively impacts an advertising client will almost certainly result in the ad being pulled, that can certainly be an influence on what is printed.

Again, I'm not defending BP. But a relatively common advertising practice just happens to be coming to light in the context of a completely different political landscape than the one that existed when guidelines like these became a standard industry practice.

Nor am I defending the practice itself. I just wanted to point out that it's nothing new. What's new is that now it's coming to light.

New Rule: No More "Where's the Outrage?"

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"Where's the outrage?!" seems to be the new rallying cry on many blogs, message boards, mailing lists and community sites. Pissed-off folks post information about their government officials and policies and then, as if expecting that taking five minutes to post about an issue on an Internet site will be received by the world as the ultimate in self-sacrifice, ask the rhetorical question "Where's the outrage?" It's getting old.

How about some of these people expending a bit more effort than what it takes to post something to their favorite community? How about moving out from behind the computer, getting off one's ass and spending a couple hours a week doing something?

The "Where's the outrage?" thing is starting to become obnoxious. It's almost like the people who ask this rhetorical question either...

1) Think enough of their writing skills that they think their words are going to spark protests and rioting the world over, which sadly is only the case in the rarest of circumstances, or

2) Think words are enough. They expect everyone else to get up off their collective asses and go organize the protests, write the angry letters to congressmen, show up at rallies and form interest-based organizations. Because. Their. Words. Mean. So. Much.

How about this? The next time you feel like writing "Where's the outrage?" take an hour out of your day instead. Draw up a petition and circulate it. Form a Meetup group around an issue and organize a meeting. Plan a fundraiser for your candidate of choice. Just DO SOMETHING rather than sitting there waiting for everyone else's outrage to boil over so that they can do all the hard work for you.