Media World: Are magazines selling out to advertisers?

Recently, The New York Timesexplored the increasingly blurry question of journalistic integrity. Many magazines, desperate for revenue, are edging closer to selling cover space to advertisers, and media watchers are trying to define the line between editorial and advertising content.

Right now, the primary defender of journalistic integrity is the American Society of Magazine Editors. The ASME, which runs the National Magazine Awards, rules on the dividing line between editorial and advertising, and only rewards those magazines that, in its estimation, keep the two separate. Unfortunately, in an age of dwindling readership and plummeting revenue, many publications are having to make the painful choice between their survival and their eligibility for the prestigious NMAs.