canyonwalker | Advertarticles. Tahoe Closed. (Reply)

When something occurs frequently the phenomenon needs a name. This week I realized there needs to be a name for "news" articles that are actually just advertisements. These are the pieces in my news feed, usually several per day, with titles like "Five Unbelievable Deals at Amazon Today!" (someone's flogging their affiliate links) and "Three Secrets of Chik-Fil-A" (a transparent ad for the restaurant chain, and the research for the article consists of quoting two Reddit posts). For these fake, advertising articles I propose the term advertarticle.

ad·ver·tart·ic·le, n: an advertisement, for a product or service from a paying sponsor, purporting to be a news article.

I thought about this again yesterday when I saw an advertarticle from Lonely Planet about how Lake Tahoe is a great place for travel right now in the Coronavirus pandemic. Oh yes, there are multiple levels of stupid in that.

The advertarticle was transparently a ploy to drive people to bookings sites for air travel, hotels, and vacation rentals— which Lonely Planet earns referral fees from.
Among other things the advertarticle touted was that Lake Tahoe is a great place for summer fun right now. Uh, no it's not! It's December and very much winter right now. Temperatures at water level at Lake Tahoe's 6,224' elevation are around freezing with snow in the forecast almost every day this week.
This is not only a terrible time to travel because of the Coronavirus pandemic but especially so in California (3/4 of Lake Tahoe is in California) where state public health rules nominally prohibit leisure travel right now. The advertarticle is not only mindless but irresponsible.

As if to highlight the money-grubbing absurdity of #3, news— actual news— posted later in the day that Lake Tahoe is shutting down to tourists on Friday (San Francisco Chronicle, 9 Dec 2020).