Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Maybe Paltrow and Tom Brady* could go into business together

In journalism, as in all things, there is no such thing as an original sin. Press-release pseudo-reporting and publicist ghostwriters have been around as long as newspapers have. That does not mean, however, that things are not getting worse. Not only does the previously mentioned flack-to-hack ratio continue to grow, but we have started down the dangerous road of legitimizing these behaviors.

Even if this "interview" was with a qualified expert offering products of real value, this would still cross numerous ethical lines. In this case, those lines are way past the horizon.

Kristen V. Brown writing for Gizmodo:

Gwyneth Paltrow, high priestess of sex-dust smoothies and $66 jade vagina eggs, is back with some more pseudoscientific health advice that you should definitely never follow.

This time, though, Paltrow is peddling a new line of completely unproven nutritional supplements from the cover of Women’s Health magazine. Yes, a magazine with the word ‘health’ in its title actually put a woman who once advocated for vaginal steaming on its cover.

“I think women in modern society don’t feel very well. The number one thing women say is ‘I’m exhausted and I don’t know why!’ I want to get to the bottom of why that is,” Paltrow said in a completely uncritical Q&A published by the magazine, which by the way was not labeled as advertising but was actually written by one of her employees.

Paltrow was gracing the cover to promote Goop Wellness, a new brand of nutritional supplements she is launching to “address the most common health complaints” she hears from women.

* In case you missed the title reference.

No comments:

Post a Comment