When flicking through the ‘Money’ section of Melbourne newspaper The Age it’s isn’t uncommon to find full page advertisements for financial products, such as this one for Challenger Annuities in the October 30, 2013 edition.
However I was surprised when I turned the page, and found a half page article by John Collett, detailing how Challenger Annuities are popular with retirees. Coincidence, or something more?
If challenger paid for the article, that’s bad.
If the age was doing the article anyway, and just happened to call up challenger, and say “hey you guys, you know we’re doing this article on y’all, and no pressure or anything, but if you wanted to buy a full page ad to run next to the article, well we woudln’t say no or anything and probably give you a good price too, kk thx”, well that’s alright then.
There has been a flood of Challenger advertisements on TV over the past few months, so the coincidence explanation for the print media appearance does seem more likely at this point. Maybe I just have too much faith in The Age keeping things above board?
I read financial news and this happens all the time. Money magazine in particular are notorious for it.
The author of this reply disclosures shares in Challenger financial
I checked the Press Council website, but they don’t mention any share ownership discosure guidelines – however most media outlets have their own inhouse ones. These are the guidelines for journalists at Australian Associated Press:
https://aap.com.au/Explore#code-practice