The Pope liked his wine. And his cocaine.
Native advertising has a long and, um, illustrious history.
When I started writing for a newspaper back in the 1990s, I was shown around the newsroom and the presses. Something that stuck with me was the need for the production side to beware fake editorial copy. Advertisers constantly tried to make their ads look like stories, I was told. But the line between the news and everything else was sacred. All such chicanery must be weeded out.
How times have changed. After the Internet collapsed the business model of newspapers in the first decade of this century, what is euphemistically called “native advertising” became not only accepted but routine. The newspaper will often write the pretend news for you. For a fee.
In my crankier moments, I see this as another small bit of evidence for the hypothesis that the world is, indeed, going to hell in a hand basket.
But it’s also possible to see this as a modest example of history ebbing and flowing. And ebbing.
Native advertising isn’t new. Far from it. In the 20th century, as journalism professionalized, it raised the bar generally. One form this took was banning the very old scam of making ads look like news stories.
And so I give you this gem of the genre that I recently came across while mucking about in The New York Times archives. It is dated April 9, 1899. Which was a Sunday, please note. The Lord’s day.
The story is self-explanatory. But for one small detail. It’s clear that the “Vin Mariani," which is what’s advertised here, and is claimed to be the source of Pope Leo XIII’s abundant energy at the age of 89, is wine. But it’s not only wine. Vin Mariani was infused with coca. Which is to say, it contained a substantial quantity of cocaine.
So if you wish to live long and be as vigorous as His Holiness People Leo XIII, I urge you, gentle reader, to consider alcohol and cocaine. It is — as reported by no less august an institution than the venerable The New York Times — “a boon of incalculable value.”
(And no, this message was not brought to you by a paid sponsor. Bless you, paid subscribers.)
