I was prepared to have all kinds of issues with John Oliver’s report on native advertising. Watching it, though, I had a problem with only one thing he said, and that one thing wasn’t that big of a deal.

From the time I was about 15, I wanted to be a newspaper reporter. I got a degree in Journalism and worked in the field for a while before leaving for organizational communications. I never lost the idealistic view of a free and independent press. I’m a huge believer in the journalistic separation of church and state.

But I’m also a believer in the potential of native advertising. The potential to salvage the news business is massive, and it can definitely help organizations reach more of the right audiences.

The question is, how can we reconcile those two seemingly irreconcilable views?

The answer is based on the most important word Oliver uttered during his hilarious and bang-on rant:

Oliver defined native advertising as advertisements that are camouflaged as editorial. If the implementation of native advertising leaves absolutely no doubt that this content was bought and paid for, then the problem evaporates.

This is exemplified in the Netflix-sponsored item that appeared in The New York Times. Even Oliver praised the piece as the best example of native advertising, but then he said the one thing I disagreed with: It’s still an ad.

It was paid for, so under a strict definition, yes, it was an ad. But it didn’t pitch the Netflix series Orange is the New Black, which was the show that sponsored the story. The feature is a well-researched, professionally-reported look at why the male-focused model for prisons doesn’t work for women. The only reference to the popular TV series in the article is this:

In an August 2013 op-ed in The New York Times, Piper Kerman, author of the prison memoir Orange Is The New Black, which inspired the Netflix series of the same name, calls the distance between women prisoners and their families “a second sentence.”

Kerman stresses the importance of these relationships, noting that they are “one of the most important factors in determining whether [women inmates] would return home successfully and go on to lead law-abiding lives.”

In other words, it’s a reference that a Times reporter could have included in an unsponsored original article. There is no overt pitching, which is the point of what most people think of as an ad.

What’s more, the format of the article distinguishes it from a typical New York Times article:

The typical Times article has a bold, italic black headline against a white background, a kicker identifying the category under which the article falls, and a list of ways to engage with the article (sharing it by email, Facebook or Twitter, saving it, and so on). The native ad is under a blue banner labeled PAID POST, it has the Times Brand Studio logo on it, along with the sponsor’s logo. If that’s too difficult to distinguish from real editorial content, then a print ad featuring a list of sale items at an appliance retailer would be just as confusing.

Unfortunately, the Women Inmates story is one of the shining examples of what native advertising can do: inform people, raise consciousness of an issue that isn’t otherwise covered, and educate. The fact that it might entice readers to watch the series (or even pay for a Netflix subscription) is why Netflix was willing to give money to The New York Times. But it was by no means camouflaged. Nor did it need to be, given the endless possible online formats available to publishers.

Which is why I worry about the Times’ recent decision to “shrink the labels that distinguish articles bought by advertisers from articles generated in the newsroom” and make the language in the labels less explicit. This is the wrong direction: Those labels should be larger and more explicit. If the content has value to readers, clearer labeling won’t hurt.

The problem is that most native ads are blatant pitches disguised as editorial.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

The problem isn’t that a failure to improve native advertising won’t cause its downfall. Publishers are latching onto native advertising because it pays; it pays far better than banner ads ever did. The problem is that it could destroy journalism rather than elevate the entire news reading experience. The church-state separation matters.

We can have our cake and eat it, too. But we have to want to. I’m beginning to despair that too few of us care enough to deal with this issue before it’s too late.

If you missed it, here’s the Oliver segment:

(Flickr photo courtesy of Geoff Gallice)