Conflict of Interest magazine review praises advertiser’s product

New York, N.Y. – NFL Street VIIII is the video game of the decade – this according to a review in the January issue of Conflict of Interest, a regional general interest magazine circulated monthly throughout the New York area and one in which the game’s manufacturer, Electronic Arts (EA), consistently runs full-page advertisements for their products.

“The folks at EA spare no expense when it comes to the design of their games, or their marketing – both of which are qualities that score high marks in our book,” said publisher David Farley, who launched the highly successful periodical in 1989. “I’ve trained our staff to take into account everything about a product when writing a review, and that especially includes how much money the product’s maker has recently spent on ads with us.”

Written by assistant editor/advertising sales manager Art Langworthy, the game’s review, which received nearly a full page of space compared to the quarter-page typically allotted for video game reviews, gives NFL Street VIIII five stars out of a possible five stars – a rating Farley said is reserved only for products that have been heavily advertised in recent issues of Conflict of Interest.

“I don’t care how good a video game or CD or movie or book is, if the company isn’t running ads with us, there’s not much of a chance they’ll even be getting a review from us, let alone a five star rating,” said Farley from his office desk as the 48-year-old entrepreneur finished an e-mail advising senior editor Anne Glass to kill an upcoming feature article on a skateboard company that had pulled its advertising earlier that morning. “Whereas if a company is running ads with us, they could be reissuing Pong and we’ll play it up to be the next Half-Life. Bottom line: we look out for our clients.”

Although NFL Street VIIII has received only moderate reviews from most media outlets since its January release, Conflict of Interest – which customarily makes obvious its bias toward advertisers’ products – went so far as to call the game “revolutionary,” “a gaming triumph” and “far and away the best video game of the decade.”

Farley speculated that the reason other industry reviewers have not heaped such unbridled praise upon such a heavily advertised product is because most media organizations go to great lengths to draw a strict line between their editorial and advertising departments. Conversely, Farley often threatens to terminate the job of any writer who refuses to submit fluff pieces on demand.

“No other magazine puts their primary emphasis on making their advertisers happy like we do,” said Farley. “We try to counter that old saying, ‘You can’t buy publicity like that.’ Here at Conflict of Interest you most certainly can. Look, it’s all laid out right here in our magazine’s mission statement: ‘To make as much money as possible.’”

In addition to habitually printing unjustifiably favorable reviews of advertisers’ products, Conflict of Interest also prints lengthy editorial features that sing outlandish praises about businesses that advertise with the magazine. Plans for the June issue, for example, include a six-page cover story titled “The Best Golf Courses in New York,” which will spotlight only golf courses that commonly run seasonal ads with Conflict of Interest.

“For an extra fifteen hundred dollars, each golf course that runs ads with us has a chance to be included in our list of the top golf resorts in the area,” said Farley. “Every course that participates will get a nice write-up on their resort, and we might even send a photographer out to shoot pictures of their club to include in the article. This is a tremendous opportunity for some of the smaller public courses to get listed as being among the finest links in New York – a list that I can almost guarantee a lot of the tightwad country clubs around here won’t be on because they won’t cut loose with a few dollars. Cheap bastards.”

According to Farley, Conflict of Interest’s annual “COI Awards” issue is the magazine’s most popular and profitable issue.

“Every March we hand out the COI Awards, dedicating the whole issue to that year’s winners,” explained Farley. “We print ballot sheets in the January and February issues, where readers can vote for their favorite New York nightclub, restaurant, tanning salon, what have you. We even include ridiculous categories like Best Eyewear, Best Hospital, Best Taxi Service – any kind of business that might run ads with us. Then after all of the votes are tallied we call up the winning businesses and talk them into running ads in the Awards issue where they thank our readers for their award. We always gross big numbers on that issue.”

Added Farley after a short pause: “I think the assertion that there’s a sucker born every minute is probably a gross underestimate.”