With Friends Like These, Who Needs Sponsored Content?

Today on The Daily Beast—IAC/InterActiveCorp's aggregator/news Web site—Nancy Bass-Wyden, owner of New York's Strand Bookstore offers some summer reading suggestions. It's pretty anodyne stuff—"Who doesn't love the Met, and who wouldn't want to read tantalizing gossip about the upper echelon of social climbers, philanthropists, and curators who have warred for prestige and control over the storied museum since its beginning?" She blurbs for Michael Gross' Rogues' Gallery—but what's unusual about the post is that most of the links to purchase the eighteen books she plugs are to her own store's Web site.

One commenter named mblips called foul: "Nancy Bass Wyden might have greta [sic.] taste in literature, but all the same wouldn't it be more honest of TDB to state that this is an advertisement and not an article."

"It is not a sponsored story," a Beast flak told Portfolio.com "Anything that is 'sponsored' is clearly indicated as such… With Book Beast, the standard Daily Beast practice is to link to Amazon for the selections… However, in this case, as the writer is an owner of the Strand, they linked to that particular website."

So, it was a favor, not a sponsorship. (Because favors never compromise editorial!) But it makes you wonder why The Beast's editors didn't think to link to Amazon.com, Powells.com, or straight to the publishers' corporate sites instead of creating the appearance of conflict of interest? (Three not-yet-published books cited by Bass-Wyden were linked to Amazon, presumably because The Strand doesn't carry them yet.) A message left with The Strand's Bass-Wyden has not yet been returned.

The Beast, which is edited by Tina Brown, has drawn fire for playing a little fast-and-loose with sponsored copy since its debut late last year. In February, the site ran a sponsored interview with actress Taraji P. Benson—an explanation of its provenance was added after it was live—and recently had a writer for Comedy Central's Michael and Michael Have Issues muse about how great her own show is in a feature. The Web site has also published sponsored content for Bottega Veneta. That blurring of advertising and editorial may be why commenters on a piece like Shopping with Kelly Bensimon from last month declared, "[I]t's obvious that this was sponsored content, replete with the hilarious casual plugs for the shoe vendor and hairdresser that she just" happened to" (OMG!) run into!" (A more pressing concern is who is Kelly Bensimon and why are we shopping with her anyway?)

Last week, Brown spoke with Women's Wear Daily's Beth Wilson about those deceptive "sponsored" stories and said, "You can create an environment that’s more subtle. That’s where the skill comes in… We’re very careful without being prissy."