[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
There is a law, no discounts for politics. Did they break it?[/quote]
This is a law? Or is it a NYT policy guideline? If this is a law I totally disagree with it. People with no funds would never be able to exercise their freedom of speech or reach public ears.
In general, don’t you think the NYT has every right to voice whatever “opinion” it wants–including advertisements? Fox does this regularly on every one of their shows. It’s not like this was presented as a front-page fact.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
There is a law, no discounts for politics. Did they break it?
This is a law? Or is it a NYT policy guideline? If this is a law I totally disagree with it. People with no funds would never be able to exercise their freedom of speech or reach public ears.
In general, don’t you think the NYT has every right to voice whatever “opinion” it wants–including advertisements? Fox does this regularly on every one of their shows. It’s not like this was presented as a front-page fact.[/quote]
Looks like the NYT also improperly charged Rudy a cut rate price but they are admitting their problem.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – In the Public Editor
column of today’s New York Times, the Times’ vice president admits that,
without the knowledge or consent of MoveOn.org Political Action, the Times
“made a mistake” in charging MoveOn its standby rate of $65,000 for the
advertisement run on Monday September 10. According to the Public Editor,
the Times’ vice president admitted that the company’s 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.” According to the Public Editor,
“the group should have paid $142,083.”
Now that the Times has revealed this mistake for the first time, and
while we believe that the $142,083 figure is above the market rate paid by
most organizations, out of an abundance of caution we have decided to pay
that rate for this ad. We will therefore wire the $77,083 difference to the
Times tomorrow (Monday, September 24, 2007).
We call on Mayor Giuliani, who received exactly the same ad deal for
The New York Times’ public editor Clark Hoyt wrote that in his opinion, not only did the advertiser get a discount it was not entitled to, but the ad violated The Times’ own written standards.
“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,’” he wrote, adding that the phrase “Betray Us” was “a particularly low blow when aimed at a soldier.”
The New York Times’ public editor Clark Hoyt wrote that in his opinion, not only did the advertiser get a discount it was not entitled to, but the ad violated The Times’ own written standards.
“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,’” he wrote, adding that the phrase “Betray Us” was “a particularly low blow when aimed at a soldier.”
[/quote]
In all fairness generals aren’t soldiers once they start answering directly to politicians. They are media puppets for the war machine; in other words, his job is to echo the position of the Bush admin to further their agenda. How does anyone even think that we will ever get a fair and balanced analysis from a uniformed Bush staff member?
I think this ad was not necessarily distasteful but was certainly simplistic–not to mention very cheeky. What a stretch of the imagination to arrive at “betray us,” like it was written by a newspaper.