Gould,

I thought your Fluff article was a well written PR piece that was worthy of
any boating magazine. I also believe the PR piece was a payoff for
advertising, both for buying past ads and future ads.

My guess is your "distributor or store" selling the product, contacted your
editor or sales dept. and said, he I have a great new product can you write
up a "review" of the product. They knew he was a good steady advertiser and
thought it would be a great way to fill up some pages and give your
advertiser something special for all of his ads. The editor or sales dept.
knows to refuse to do these PR articles can result in lost ad revenues going
to your competitors..

Now, if a distributor or store who never advertised in your magazine had
contacted your magazine for a fluff piece on a similar product I sincerely
doubt we would ever see the piece, unless he agreed to run some ads.

No need to be ashamed, you are in the business to make money, but don't fool
yourself into believing their is not a "payoff" for advertising..

Any reader of your magazine would know that this was not really a review,
but a nice PR article. It doesn't matter if it is a piece that is sent out
by the builder's PR dept, or a magazine who supplies the writer with a tape
recorder so he can repeat what the builder tells him, it is a fluff PR
piece.

"Gould 0738" wrote in message
...
The magazines, the boat builders and suppliers, and most of the general
public know of the symbiotic relationship, I am surprised that no one
told
Gould about it.

Suddenly we're backpedaling from "a PR piece written in exchange for a
advertising commitment" to a "symbiotic relationship"?

Every aspect of any economy is a "symbiotic relationship."