Heya. I'm the editor of Ars Technica UK, where this story was originally published.

It's not native advertising. The author just really likes the 911. Ars doesn't do native advertising/advertorial. We do some sponsored stuff, but those posts are clearly marked.

Thanks for the response, I really appreciate it.

Is there somewhere on Ars' website where I can read the "Ars doesn't do native advertising/advertorial" policy?

As a jaded, cynical reader, the trap I fall into is that if content clearly marks itself as an advertorial, I know what I'm dealing with and can take it with the appropriate grains of salt. On the other hand, if content that seems advertorial comes from a site I normally trust, but with no markings at all, I'm left wondering if it's a benign "I just really love this thing and wanted to write about it", or if it's a really clever native ad invading another space that used to be on the other side of the wall.

What I'd love to see from Ars and other responsible journalistic outlets is a) a policy about native advertising that's easy to find and b) at the editor's discretion, if there's an article that may seem particularly advertorial-ish, a pre-emptive disclaimer that says "Hey, even if this seems like native advertising, it isn't. Here's a link to our general advertorial policy, and here's a link to the author personally gushing about how much he or she loves the Porsche 911 and talking about why they wrote this article."

And yes, I know that it sucks that you guys, as responsible journalists, have to bear the negative externality of irresponsible journalists publishing "18 insane things you wouldn't think the Toyota Tacoma could do...#7 will blow your mind".

Yeah, I don't think we have such a public statement at the moment - and maybe that's something we should rectify. All I can tell you is that native content/advertorial would be very, very clearly labelled. We would never try to sneak anything through.

In general, Ars is _very_ above board. Our reputation and authority are everything. That's why we're one of the very few publications that doesn't do native advertising - we're just not sure how you can do that, and still somehow expect the reader to trust what you write.

But yeah, I appreciate that just saying "trust us!" is a bit difficult on the Internet today :)

It's not just you.

If you skim through the comments on what they're calling "Cars Technica" articles, you'll find heavy criticism (especially on the earlier articles), some of which is along the lines of native advertising or sponsored content allegations---not helped by Porsche and Audi being advertising partners. The Ars writers and editors are however on record saying that they are absolutely not using native advertising or sponsored content (except when there is a clear banner declaring so).

Personally, I find that the further Ars gets from it's traditional domain of computers and consumer tech, the worse the quality of the article. In the case of the automotive articles, I don't think the editors or writers have sufficient subject matter expertise to write the well-informed articles that are common for Ars' computer and consumer tech coverage.

Also, I think there's a genuine issue in journalism / online readership that remains to be addressed - the prestige payment scale.

Basically my view is that internet hosted articles are a low form of journalism, so it's reasonable to expect UPROXX to get basic facts wrong XX% of the time, or a Huffington Post author to employ fallacies here and there to support a position, or some other kind of issue where quality and integrity are at odds with driving traffic. It makes for good training though. That's when it's possible to advance to the next tier.

An Ars Technica or Engadget is above the basic tier, but only in the sense that they have a better reputation, drive more traffic, and therefore pay better. The usefulness of this tier varies - those with chops will continue to develop. Eventually, a featured writer or contributor will become known for their work at the site.

Then comes the top tier, the legacy media outlets that are forced to compete with the lower two tiers mentioned. They are at the height of the prestige and pay scale environment, at least in theory. I've seen several authors move from 2nd tier outlets (Ars Technica, DealBreaker) up to the 1st tier (Washington Post, Bloomberg) which look like the reward for many years of developing a journalistic style, reputation, and pool of knowledge to weave into works as a whole.

I think it'd be a pretty worthwhile review of careers for authors in certain fields since a 20XX time until the present. Unfortunately I don't have the free time or interest to do it myself. It's just a musing, I suppose.

You can expect pretty much any of the automotive coverage (I'm not singling out this author in particular) on ArsTechnica to be essentially native advertising. Auto makers carefully parcel out access to their products and materials (all the photos in this article are helpfully credited to Porsche) to publications they can expect favorable coverage from.

Native advertising, or just a couple people in the office who own Porches and really like the cars. Bias can be internal. They are nice cars. Mechanically ridiculous imho, but lots of people just like them. Some of those people write about it.

/* Native advertising, or just a couple people in the office who own Porches and really like the cars. Bias can be internal. They are nice cars. Mechanically ridiculous imho, but lots of people just like them. Some of those people write about it. */

I think this might be it.

The article is hard to distinguish from advertising, but also journalists can fall for the wrong car.

The 911 is not about rationally thinking through the pros and cons of the technology. It is a lifestyle product that sells to drivers who want to buy an image. A rational discussion must lead to error and end in /dev/null.

This or any car related article/site/TV/Web show is native advertising (but not like Buzzfeed native advertising) because author probably in one camp. Some examples: Porsche, Ferrari, Muscle Car, European, American, Japanese, Modified, Old School Cars.... If you dont know the scene just dont comment like it's Buzzfeed piece!

Agree, and is interesting. Porsche seems to face currently the multiple problems of being an expensive car with a little dated design, ridiculously inflated maintenance and repair costs, that drinks a lot of fuel in a world plenty of speed limits and that, well... is a german company.

Is having a Porsche a positive symbol and chick magnet currenty in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, France, UK... or is more a sort of middle age men's embarrassment?

Maybe lots of advertising and community managers could fix the problem again. Maybe they just had passed their prime time. Who knows?. I personally do not want this car.

Smell? The whole article reads like one large implicit "this is paid content" disclaimer. Which is so much better than the usual camouflage of hiding the ad behind some toothless faux-critical negative paragraphs to tick that "balanced" checkbox.

Of course it is!

If you're reading a blog post about a product, use the rule that the maker/distributor of that product was involved in the production of the blog article, unless you have compelling evidence to the contrary.

I've seen inside that machine, and money talks.

My aunt (now retired) was a career journalist at a news agency. More than half of what you read is PR.