Thanks again, Rupert Murdoch
“In its latest concession to the worst revenue slide since the Depression, The New York Times has begun selling display advertising on its front page, a step that has become increasingly common across the newspaper industry.”
– The New York Times, Jan. 5, 2009
It’s a sign of the times, pardon the pun.
There was a day, not so very long ago, when a virtual firewall separated the advertising and editorial functions of every self-respecting newspaper.
It was understood that editorial space (aka, “the news hole”) was not for sale, ever – that even if you were CBS, Ford, or the Coldwell Banker Broker of the Month, you could not insert yourself onto the front page. That space was reserved for what the editors judged to be the most urgent matters requiring the attention of the community on that particular day.
No part of that space was available to the highest bidder. Not even the bottom inch of the page.
Times change, of course (ha ha!)
It’s rather a quaint notion now, to assume that some realm of our public space could be held sacrosanct, protected from the tedious, unchecked hyperbole of boundless commerce. Never mind stadiums, people sell naming rights to their kids now.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Advertising is not inherently evil, after all. It’s an absolutely necessary means of promoting participation in the economy that allows us to live so very large.
It’s just that too enormous a percentage of advertising has always been, at best, disingenuous, amoral and deliberately misleading. Another too-huge percentage has always been about interrupting us – which is just plain rude.
But, market pressures being what they are, the folks who since 1851 have brought us “All the News That’s Fit to Print” have adjusted their definition of what positively demands our collective attention.
The most untouchable of brands has willingly co-opted itself. (Again, and at least now in a more visible way than when they sold all of us out by enabling the invasion and occupation of Iraq – see Judith Miller. But that’s another story.)
It was one of the last bastions, and only a matter of time I suppose. And really, aren’t we all marketing, all the time? Hike miles from any billboard, and you’ll see that birds do it, bees do it…
Yet we’ve lost something. The notion of veracity itself has been eroded by another degree.
Sometimes, when people are cornered with, say, incontrovertible evidence that the UFOs have landed and there are aliens living among us, they’ll fall back on: “If the aliens are really here, don’t you think it would be on the front page of the New York Times?”
There was something like reverence for that front page.
But like all real estate these days, it has depreciated in value. From a business standpoint, you can’t blame them for trading on it while they still enjoy some of that phenomenal equity. In this day and age, it’s commercially impractical, after all, to present yourself as a paragon of unassailable journalistic integrity. And rather pretentious.
You might say it was just plain rude.
Sir ~
While I respect your point and right to write it, it appears that you are incessantly selling us the idea “that everything is marketing.”
Personally, I have not been “to the market” in ages and prefer to forage and pillage my wares upon the Net in a matter that might be considered sacrosanct in your vernacular in accoradnce with the very predatory nature of this medium that Al Gore so altrusitically gave to us; his American public.
Although you question truth in advertising, should we not as sentient beings also question the veracity of journalism itself? How do I know that your coulmn here was not created by Hal the Computer? If indeed you are real, are a wordsmith as well, and are up to the challenge; I invite you to lunch at high noon in the coastal California sun for a duel of words on the beaches of Encinitas!
Affirmative Dave, I read you. If there is any misinterpretation, it is due to human error. The HAL 9000 accepts your invitation.
Schedule that lunch at the tequila bar on 101 and I’d fly across the country to join your debate.
By the way, haven’t most newspapers been falling back on repackaged press releases to fill front page gaps for years now?
What websites currently occupy your home page tabs? I’m starved for a news source that offers less than 90 percent editorial content on its site.
Hi Bobbie,
I’ve recently started using Google Reader, and it’s the most efficient way I’ve ever seen to monitor a variety of new sources. It’s very simple to set up. Almost every blog and news source has RSS feeds, you just put those in and you can scan headlines like crazy… among my daily must-reads are Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, Josh Marshall’s Talking Point Memo, and of course, the front page feed of the NY Times…
Tom, bravo. Great post. I’m not as offended by this breach as I would have been years ago, but that’s only because relentless exposure has pounded me into acquiesence. Have you seen the Union-Tribune’s version of the front-page ad? The home delivery edition often has a bright sticker with an ad on it, and its saving grace is that you can easily peel it off and chuck it. Then you have your front page back. Of course, they also have “regular” front page ads, but maybe the NY Times will start with the removable ads to break us in a bit.
Hey Scoop – yeah, I realized in responding to Bobbie about where I get my news now, that I haven’t actually held a print version of the NY Times in years. So the point is moot — like all big metro newspapers, the Times is a) less relevant to readers; and b) in serious financial trouble. There have been rumors that Google would buy the paper, but I think they put out a statement this week saying they don’t intend to go into the newspaper business.