Sounds likely. In Germany, having a seperate department fpr paid advertising content is a loophole to pay lip service to journalistic standards - the people who write the paid placements never write normal articles and vice versa. This way, the paper can claim that they "clearly seperate" editorial and advertising pieces. Even though the paid placements are never marked as advertising and the more proficient writers manage to make them appear as regular editorial content.
All major newspapers here do this, and some are absolutely excessive and blatant about it. This includes publishers like SPIEGEL and FAZ which are about as reputable here as NYT and WaPo are in the US.
Sounds likely. In Germany, having a seperate department fpr paid advertising content is a loophole to pay lip service to journalistic standards - the people who write the paid placements never write normal articles and vice versa. This way, the paper can claim that they "clearly seperate" editorial and advertising pieces. Even though the paid placements are never marked as advertising and the more proficient writers manage to make them appear as regular editorial content.
All major newspapers here do this, and some are absolutely excessive and blatant about it. This includes publishers like SPIEGEL and FAZ which are about as reputable here as NYT and WaPo are in the US.