Puffery?

I went to Dr. Nicholas Mason's lecture last week called, "The Rise of Mass-Media Puffery and the 'Death of Literature in Georgian Britain". I was confused when I read the word 'puffery' so I decided to look it up online and figure it out before I listened to a lecture and would become totally lost. I found the definition of puffery and was able to understand a little bit better when he talked about puffery in advertising and the effect it has on book reviews. I don't believe puffery is only in advertising. In fact, journalists can use puffery in newspaper review columns or online articles. As a broadcast journalist, I can see how it would be easy to just exaggerate some of the truth of lie about facts to make a story more intriguing to the audience. I never would accept money or bribes from a store or organization to broadcast false ideas to the public. Its a part of the journalism code of ethics that we have gone over in all of my classes. Brother Walz emphasized to our class one day how important it is that you never even accept food from someone because of the message it could send to potential viewers. After listening to his lecture, I was convinced that puffery would never effect me as a journalist. In the context of his lecture, it seems like puffery is a much finer line in advertising than in journalism. I think too that it could become effective in advertising in most causes but when I think of it in journalism, I think of Jayson Blair too and his lies in the New York Times. In journalism, its just safe to say to stay away.