Wall between editorial and advertising

What do you mean by a wall between the two?

If you're talking about doing certain stories because an advertiser wants it, then the wall should be there.

But considering how bad things are, I've softened my stance on other things. Want an ad on the front page? Go for it. Want your ad smack in the middle of the page, with text wrapped around it? OK, but it'll cost extra.

 

My first newspaper job was at a small weekly in northwest Iowa that covered the entire county -- population around 8,200.

A business owner in the same town as the paper was picked up one one night by a sheriff's deputy for alleged drug possesion and shown the other side of the gray bar hotel. When he gets out on bail, he calls the paper and threatens to pull his ads if we run his name in the blotter.

The publisher (who, to be fair, wouldn't have gone along with that any way) mentions it to the editor, who responds with a sharp-tongued response that belied her soft looks.

Needless to say, the business owner got to see his name in print, and in such a small community, everyone knew about the incident before the paper came out.

That's one small weekly where the wall is firmly in place when it comes to whether or not sales dictate writing.

 

I swear I'm not making this up: As planes were hitting buildings on 9/11/01, our news staff huddled in a conference room and an editor told us that before we run anything about the attacks, we'd better make sure the hijackers weren't also our advertisers.

He was kidding. I hope. (And, no, I don't work there anymore.)

 

Our wall with advertising is now 10 miles in width.

We had an upheaval in our advertising department a couple years ago. All the experienced people, including the manger of over 10 years, got pissed at the publisher and left and none of her more-experienced sales people wanted the ad manager job and left to boot. So we had an entire staff turnover.

The new people couldn't cut the mustard, so they took heat and began blaming editorial for everything. They would want specific stories ran for advertisers to run on the same page as the ad the advertisers had bought. Basically they tried to take over the section. They couldn't see why this was wrong and they didn't care, they just wanted their cut and to make the publisher happy.

We wouldn't budge. After that, we got dragged into meetings and blamed for the "poor condition" of the paper, which kept them from selling ads. The publisher half believed this shit. The tip of the iceberg for me was when I was SE, one sales person kept typing up letters to "have in writing" every complaint against the sports section for lack of coverage. She bitched about one town in particular, so I grabbed about two months of papers from the morgue, pulled every one that had a story from that town in it and slammed what was a very heavy and distinct pile on her desk while she was bullshitting with someone on the phone. We didn't talk again after that.

We figured out quick they were fishing for complaints, because they tried to claim that accounts payable was behind because our news and sports stank so much, advertisers didn't want to pay what they owed. Uh, yeah.

Finally, with numbers in the toilet, the regional publisher had enough. She demotes the new ad manager, fires half the ad staff and moves them 10 miles away to be under the sister paper and their ad manager. Makes them share the same office with her. Our publisher gets canned, too. I guess the regional publisher could figure out that, with the same editorial staff two years before, ads were selling great. One of the happiest days working at the joint was when they hauled their asses out of there.

I'll never forget some of the looks they gave us when they packed their shit and headed out the door. It's amazing the mess incompetent people can make.

My favorite thing they pushed - dateline changes. The town we were based in was rivals with the county seat, where the courthouse was. We would run court and law enforcement stories from the dateline of the county seat and this was "upsetting advertisers" so the publisher made us change our datelines from the city name to just listing the county. I wish this was the only stupid thing they did but it wasn't.

 

Here's a story about the lined being blurred in a way I've never quite come to grips with. Was it a good thing or a bad thing?

A few years ago I became enamored of the way the Fort Worth Star Telegram (maybe it was the DMN, but I think it was Fort Worth) devoted a weekly page in the section to a couple of the smaller D-I programs in the metroplex. They'd call it "Inside UTA Sports" (for example) and it would come with its own flag (though an inside page). Elements included standings and schedules for in-season sports on a one-column strip down the left side, a composite schedule for all sports down the same column, a feature (usually on a non-revenue sport the editors don't want cluttering up page 1) to anchor it and a "Faces in the Crowd" type strip across the bottom that highlighted the who's hot in the various sports from the past week. Usually, a briefs section made up of edited SID release copy ("So and so named conference player of the week" or "Tip off of Saturday game moved to 3 p.m." kind of stuff) would be used to fill the hole between the anchoring feature and the faces in the crowd type strip. It would come out the same day every week (I believe an early weekday, like Monday or Tuesday).

What I liked about it is how it packaged information that we had been running randomly, if at all (did we ever run volleyball standings?) and it trained hard-core fans of said school to get a specific paper, particularly on one of those early weekdays (Monday-Tuesday) that usually aren't big sellers for any paper.

I brought the idea back to my shop. Not only do I pitch the service to the reader and all that, but I also pitch that it's a softball lobbed to the ad department because it's easy to target the main boosters of said school to have their name associated with an "Inside Local U." page.

To my surprise, the EE went straight to advertising with the idea and by the end of the day they had sold a strip to a local bank to go across the bottom. The local bank would buy the strip under one condition: It would appear only on said page. So, we were told, that page HAD to be the "Inside Local U." page from then on out.

I was very uncomfortable with that because now we sold placement and now we were letting an advertiser dictate content. Also, considering those terms, is there pressure on us not to run on that page the jump from our (hypothetical) page one story on the 50 recruiting violations by the basketball team.

Anyway, this page has now existed in some form for about 5-6 years. The strip ad — same advertiser — has been there the whole time. I'm not sorry we sold that strip ad because, frankly, there have been Tuesdays (that's when we run it) where the strip ad for that page is the only paid ad in the whole section. At the same time, I've never been comfortable with that page *having* to be that page and there have been days where the section would have better been served if that page was a general page (there have been some 4-page sections).

Thoughts?

 

Editorial is on the second floor, while advertising is on the first. But as far as that invisible wall goes, it's as tall and wide as we want to make it. I was once told by the publisher that "so and so's kid goes to Bumblefuck Academy, and he's a good advertiser." "Mmmmmm. I'll keep that in mind," said expendable, just as he decides to keep his plans on featuring BFA's rival for the next edition. The game was more compelling. Bottom line is, that we can get the pressure from advertising and sometimes, at small, family-owned shops, the publisher, but if we're doing things right, there is really no need to bow to said pressure.

 

Brian Griffin, I must be misreading your post about the strip ad on the Inside Local U page.

Wasn't selling the ad or ads for that specific paged tied to Local U a main reason for the page? So when The Bank says "We'll buy, but it HAS to be on Inside Local U when it is published as you have suggested" that's kind of the point, isn't it? A premium placement or specific page, targeting one locale?

In that case I don't see The Bank dictating any kind of coverage. Those kinds of ads are sold quite often.

 

From the standpoint that it dictates that we MUST have a Local U. page to fulfill our obligation to the ad, it does sort of dictate content. There are a handful of Tuesdays a year where the section would be better serve not having the Local U. page, but we're forced by the existence of that ad and the agreement behind the ad.

 

I understand your point, Brian. I do. And I would hope there are some kind of time constraints on the ad. I mean, at some point they've got to renew it, right? Maybe six months, maybe a year at most. Can't be much more than that, I would think.

Thing is, if this is a regular page you're doing and the ad was sold under the pretense that it would be on that regular page (which is a common ad tactic) ... then the ad isn't dictating anything in terms of coverage.

However, if y'all decide you're not going to run that page as a regular feature anymore, then set a timeframe for it, talk to the people in ads and give them a chance to give that advertiser a heads-up (assuming the 6-year-old agreement still exists, which it may not.) Once that contract runs out again, then there's no perceived obligation to run a Local U. page.

 

It also should be spelled out that no specific number of stories, inches, etc., will be part of the deal and the EE or ME should be in on that discussion along with the Ad Department.

If in the dead summer months Local State U is not worthy of anything more than one story or feature, that's all they get. You've met any obligation and can run other items on the page. If anyone complains then you have a story there and that's that.

Now, if The Bank says it only will re-sign if the ENTIRE page is Local State U copy or they deserve a refund of sorts, that's a problem.

Unless it's how things have been done or there is an agreement for a full page, you should be able to get around that in slow times.

 

A very good point, SixToe.

The editors still get to decide what goes on the page, and jumps or unrelated stories are absolutely fair game (especially on slow days.) As long as there's one story about Local U. on the page, you can call it "the Local U. page" and the ad still fits.

 

I think you've identified the problem I have with the whole deal. Five years ago, it would be a COMPLETE outrage to allow an advertiser that much influence. Now, it's kind of like "Hey, they bought an ad, be happy."