The NYT’s Public Editor Clark Hoyt published the admission to the question a lot of us have been asking in today’s paper:
FOR nearly two weeks, The New York Times has been defending a political advertisement that critics say was an unfair shot at the American commander in Iraq.
[...]
Did MoveOn.org get favored treatment from The Times? And was the ad outside the bounds of acceptable political discourse?
The answer to the first question is that MoveOn.org paid what is known in the newspaper industry as a standby rate of $64,575 that it should not have received under Times policies. The group should have paid $142,083. The Times had maintained for a week that the standby rate was appropriate, but a company spokeswoman told me late Thursday afternoon that an advertising sales representative made a mistake.
The answer to the second question is that the ad appears to fly in the face of an internal advertising acceptability manual that says, “We do not accept opinion advertisements that are attacks of a personal nature.” Steph Jespersen, the executive who approved the ad, said that, while it was “rough,” he regarded it as a comment on a public official’s management of his office and therefore acceptable speech for The Times to print.
[...]
Eli Pariser, the executive director of MoveOn.org, told me that his group called The Times on the Friday before Petraeus’s appearance on Capitol Hill and asked for a rush ad in Monday’s paper. He said The Times called back and “told us there was room Monday, and it would cost $65,000.” Pariser said there was no discussion about a standby rate. “We paid this rate before, so we recognized it,” he said. Advertisers who get standby rates aren’t guaranteed what day their ad will appear, only that it will be in the paper within seven days.
So this isn’t the first time the NYT has given MoveOn a special rate.
Catherine Mathis, vice president of corporate communications for The Times, said, “We made a mistake.” She said the advertising representative failed to make it clear that for that rate The Times could not guarantee the Monday placement but left MoveOn.org with the understanding that the ad would run then. She added, “That was contrary to our policies.”
“Contrary to our policies”? That’s a delicate way of putting it. Bbbbut, there’s no liberal bias at play here:
The Times bends over backward to accommodate advocacy ads, including ads from groups with which the newspaper disagrees editorially. Jespersen has rejected an ad from the National Right to Life Committee, not, he said, because of its message but because it pictured aborted fetuses. He also rejected an ad from MoveOn.org that contained a doctored photograph of Cheney. The photo was replaced, and the ad ran.
Sulzberger, who said he wasn’t aware of MoveOn.org’s latest ad until it appeared in the paper, said: “If we’re going to err, it’s better to err on the side of more political dialogue. … Perhaps we did err in this case. If we did, we erred with the intent of giving greater voice to people.”
Yeah, I’ll say. To his kind of people, anyway.
This is big news in the conservative blogosphere, and you can read tons of reax here.
Thanks to ST reader Leslie for the tip.
Flashback 7/25/2004:
- Then-NYT public editor Daniel Okrent: “Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper? Of course it is.”
PM Update: MoveOn.org has offered to pay full price for the ad, and is calling on Rudy Giuliani to do the same for the ad he ran.
This saddens me more than Judith Miller’s attempt to use going to jail as a career move. It saddens me more than Jayson Blair. It saddens me more than Maureen Dowd having turned into a parody of herself. It saddens me more than the Times’s continuing to employ a clearly insane columnist, Paul Krugman.
Why? Because I would have thought that the one area that the Times would manage to keep free of its institutional bias would have been the adverts.
Why? Because the Times rushed its head of advertising into the fray–he was taking on-line questions this past week. And he assured us everything was legal. And now we learn from Mr. Hoyt that it was not.
Why? Because it shows that the cheestastic weasel Arthur Sulzberger (The Wonderful Guy Who Brought You Howell Raines), fresh from throwing in the towel on his disastrous “Times Select” plan, continues to show that it’s not always a good idea for Daddy to replace himself with his son.
In my opinion he ranks second in New York City’s Hall of Shame to James Dolan, president of Madison Square Garden (also a son who was put on the throne by Daddy), who has ruined the sports franchises, his cable network, and decided to take a sexual harassment suit to trial instead of settling.
But that, children, is another story.
OK rant over. The Jets are playing Miami in the early game and I’m so NOT ready to camp out in front of the TV.
Good luck to the Panthers, ST!
Comment by Leslie @ 9/23/2007 - 11:58 am
It is somewhat surprising that they charge at all. The ad was not meaningfully different from the NYT editorial policy.
More amazing is the failure of their media competition to feast on the obvious idelogical bias. Less amazing when one relizes the ideological consistency amongst most of the NY Times’ media competitors.
Comment by The Real Sporer @ 9/23/2007 - 5:32 pm
So where are all the people who posted on this topic a week ago and said that we were being paranoid about this whole thing? I’m sure they will turn up any minute to admit they were wrong and they NY Times lies. Right?
I love Susan Estrichs take on the whole thing.
Attacking a Newspaper Ad Doesn’t Save a Single Soldier
Hmmmm, Susan you didn’t seem to care when the dems were wasting 2 years and millions of dollars in the worthless Valerie Plame case. You also didn’t seem to care when the dems spent weeks trying to lynch Alberto Gonzales for doing something every President in the last 30 years has done. Where was your concern about “wasted time” that doesn’t save soldiers lives then?
A rhetorical question, of course.
Comment by NC Cop @ 9/23/2007 - 6:51 pm
Not to mention Sue, taking out a full page ad to slander a career soldier who has served this nation honorably doesn’t save a single soldier’s life either. Please, buy a clue. How twits like this manage to wind up teaching in colleges is ridiculous.
Comment by NC Cop @ 9/23/2007 - 6:52 pm
I wonder if Susan Estrich understands that her writing about controversy about the MoveOn ad doesn’t “save a single soldier” either?
Comment by Sister Toldjah @ 9/23/2007 - 7:26 pm
Maybe instead of just filling blogs with protests of Susan “Estrogen”’s ad, why not look up her email address at USC? Try http://www.usc.edu to find her email address. She is a “Law Professor” there since she replaced Erwin Chimerinsky.
Yeah, I “love” the way USC reloads on the libs, yet charges $43,000/year for kids to go there.
Comment by PCD @ 9/24/2007 - 12:10 pm
This is such BS. Especially since Moron.org’s admission that they have paid this price before. This was no mistake, this is like minded people gathering together to ensure the downfall of this great country. Pathetic lowlifes.
I would like to make a statement about this idiot’s job performance. There was nothing “rough” about his decision. This was clearly an attack on a man of honor, of which Jespersen has little, to help embolden our enemies so that the US loses this war.
Not to mention NC, this sort of thing emboldens our enemies and causes more of our soldiers to die. This is sort of thing is useful as a terrorist recruiting tool. Don’t think so, isn’t it amazing how Ahmeanie espouses leftwing talking points so easily?? They just flow off of his lips, like him and turbin Durbin have been old buddies who like to talk politics over tea. Remember always, Benedict Arnold was a hero of the revolution, before he was a traitor. - Lorica
Comment by Lorica @ 9/24/2007 - 1:22 pm
Actually you can clink on a link on her article itself and send her a message. I’ve already sent an e-mail which basically says the same thing I did in my previous post. I haven’t received a reply yet….curious.
Comment by NC Cop @ 9/24/2007 - 6:19 pm