roundtable: "Advertiser Pressure on Newspapers is Common: Survey"
roundtable: "Advertiser Pressure on Newspapers is Common: Survey"
"Advertiser Pressure on Newspapers is Common: Survey"
W. Curtiss Priest (BMSLIB@mitvma.mit.edu)
Wed, 26 Apr 95 12:18:58 EDT
Message-Id: <9504261622.AA29671@a.cni.org>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 95 12:18:58 EDT
From: "W. Curtiss Priest" <BMSLIB@mitvma.mit.edu>
Subject: "Advertiser Pressure on Newspapers is Common: Survey"
To: Telecommunications Policy Roundtable <ROUNDTABLE@CNI.ORG>
CITS Observations on attached article:
W. Curtiss Priest
Perhaps the most telling part of this article about advertiser
pressure on newspapers is the statement:
The study finds a change in advertising and journalistic values may be
occurring, as one editor wrote, "This problem has worsened considerably
over the past couple of years along with competition for ad dollars."
As reported at a recent Emerson-Tufts Health Communication conference,
there appear to be at least three factors at work in determing what
today's journalists can and will cover:
1. There is a sense among young journalists that a story
must have "news value." For example, Theodore Landsmark of
the Healthy Boston Initiative has "given up trying to get
coverage of their community efforts in the Boston Globe."
He comes with stories of successful interventions in issues
of preventative health or violence reduction, and is told
to "come back when he has a real story." (Conference presentation,
April 20, 1995)
But what constitutes "news value?" A young journalist from
Misouri couldn't exactly say, but said that, for example, they
could only do a story about diabetes because "it hadn't been
covered in the last few years."
The implicit message appears to be, no matter how important
a story, it is important not to "bore the reader" with too
many accounts, no matter how relevant.
Also there is an increasing sense of "news sensationalism."
A couple of years ago the New York Times Magazine story talked
about news readership as a form of voyeurism. Instad of
peeking into people's windows, we peak in through the "innocent"
activity of reading a newspaper or watching TV.
2. Secondly, there is a pattern of political realignment occuring
at major newspapers. In the case of the Boston Globe, a
new editor was brought in several years ago. Recently there
was a column by the newspaper's ombudsman about the frustration
many have had about getting particular news covered and the
belief that it related back to the Globe's implicit agenda
toward political realignment.
3. And, as this article shows, advertisers have substantial
influence on the content of newspapers. And as the above
quotation notes, the situation is worsening.
To counteract these trends the discussants in a working table
on "Politics, the Media and Health" made these public policy suggests --
Short term:
a. Return to traditional news values and worthiness.
Challenge the current "news value" trend by getting
communities involved in agenda setting and influencing
newspapers about their contents.
b. Search out alternative information channels. Look to
community develops such as a local computer bulletin
board system or a local town "Web" page or tap into
interpersonal communications in the community
c. Recognize the power of communication on an individual basis
Long term:
a. Communities should do coalition building. They should
determine the issues they feel are important and go to
newspapers and talk about policy and behavior
b. Look to new types of news forms, such as PNews (Progressive
News) which provides moderated information of quality and
diverse perspective.
It was observed by communication specialists at the conference that
it is difficult to penetrate the typical media habits of the
population and, so, attempts at new media may fail to attract
readership/viewership/participants.
This suggests that working with established media through coaltion
building may be the most effacious route to recovering media focus
but this requires significant commitment among the "attentive public"
-- the 2% of the population, as identified by a Kettering Foundation
study, who shape and make local public opinion.
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Editor&Publisher, January 16, 1993, p. 28
Advertising/Promotion
Advertiser pressure
on newspapers
iS common: survey
More than 90% have been pressured
but only one-third have caved in
by Ann Marie Kerwin
ADVERTISERS HAVE PRESSURED
more than 90% of U.S. newspapers to
change or kill stories, a recent study by
Marquette University's Department of
Journalism found. The same number of
newspapers have had advertisers threat-
en to withdraw or withdrew advertising
over reporting of news or feature stories.
However only one-third of those
newspapers caved in to those pressures,
the study found.
Conducted by Lawrence C. Soley,
Colnik Professor of Communication at
the Wisconsin University, and Robert L.
Craig, a former Marquette professor
now teaching at the University of Ul-
ster, the survey polled 250 daily newspa-
per editors.
Approximately 60% of the editors re-
turned and completed the eight-questior
mail survey, indicating a high interest in
this issue. The average retum rate of a mail
survey is between 10% to 25%, with 30%
regarded as the minimum acceptable re-
sponse rate needed to give a survey validity.
Out of the sampled newspapers,
46.4% had circulations under 25,000 and
53.6% had circulations exceeding 25,000.
The study was conducted in the wake
of several highly publicized attempts by
advertisers to pressure news media. At
the Duluth (Minn.) News-Tribune, a
consumer affairs reporter was dismissed
after writing a column that angered real
estate advertisers. In Minneapolis,
Minn., television stations refused to air
commercials critical of Northern States
Power Co., a frequent advertiser, after
having received calls from a power com-
pany representatlve.
Ninety-three point two percent of ed-
itors responded that an advertiser had
threatened to withdraw advertising from
the newspaper because of the content of
news stories. In a follow-up question,
89% said that the advertisers had fol-
lowed through on their threats.
While only a third of the editors sur-
veyed (36.7%) reported that advertisers
succeeded in influencing news or fea-
tures in their newspapers, a breakdown
of the responses show that small- circu-
lation papers are much more likely to
cave in to advertiser pressures than large
metropolitan dailies. Only 15% of edi-
tors reported that their newspapers sel-
dom run stories that criticize or offend
advertisers.
More than half (55.1%) report pres-
sure from within their newspaper to
write or tailor news stories to please
advertisers.
The study cites several anecdotal evi-
dence about advertising effects on news
information. In 1986 the Los Angeles
Herald Examiner documented the wide-
spread practice of shortweighting and
overcharging customers by Southern
California grocery stores. Ralphs, one of
the region's largest supermarket chains,
canceled its $250,000 advertising con-
tract with the paper. Although the re-
port caused the Los Angeles County
Board of Supervisors to launch an inves-
tigation of supermarket pricing prac-
tices, the Los Angeles Times never
picked up the story.
Other reports of auto dealers' at-
tempts to control news reporting about
automobiles at a number of U.S. news-
papers, and pressures on newspapers from
builders and realtors, were pub-
lished in the Washington Journalism Re-
view. Real estate reporters and editors,
"tired of the constant, grinding and
time-consuming bitch calls from agents
and builders" began to censor them-
selves, the study reports. Some newspa-
per publishers have even handed real es-
tate sections over to their advertising de-
partments, making them public relations
kits for the industry, the study adds.
The study was begun so systemati-
cally collected evidence could deter-
mine whether the anecdotes were typi-
cal experiences.
The results do support claims that ad-
vertisers apply economic pressure to in-
fluence news content. It also shows that
some newspapers do cave in to pressure,
but those that do not self-censor or cave
in have had advertising withdrawn by
disgruntled advertisers.
Almost all newspapers, regardless of
their size, have been pressured. Circula-
tion size, however, was a factor in
whether advertisers succeeded in influ-
encing content. The number of editors
reporting that advertisers had succeeded
in influencing content dropped as circu-
lation rose. Small newspapers reported
in-house pressure to write or tailor news
stories to please advertisers significantly
more often than large newspapers. Edi-
tors pointed the finger at both the pub-
lisher and the advertising department as
exerting intemal pressure.
One editor wrote, "Only internal pres-
sure is from ad side. My role is to keep
them away from the news department"
______________________________________________
More than half (55.1%) report pressure from
within their newspaper to write or tailor news
stories to please advertisers.
______________________________________________
Several newspaper editors who gave
open-ended responses to questions indi-
cated that advertising pressure is com-
mon. One editor wrote, "Anyone who
worked for a newspaper any length of
time would know the answers to these
questions. Another wrote, "Of course
(See Pressure on page 39)
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Editor&Publisher o January 16, 1993
Pressure
Continued from page 29
advertisers have tried to influence the
content of stories. Most people do."
Several of the open-ended responses
suggest that a few large advertisers, like
auto dealers, may be responsible for the
pressure.
One editor wrote, "The worst offend-
ers are car dealers. One canceled $9,000
a month in advertising after the news
department wrote a story that was not
critical but the headline writer described
the car as a 'funny-looking car.' "
Another wrote, "The main offenders
are our biggest advertisers, the car dealers.
They want all stories involving auto sales
to have a rosy outlook, and they whine
about negative economic stories, even if
they're on a national level from AP"
A third wrote, "A local dealer with-
drew its advertising for two months after
we ran a Page One story outlining a
problem with a [model of car]. The . . .
wire story was accompanied by a local
sidebar indicating [local users] experi-
enced no similar problems. The same
dealer [unsuccessfully] tried to convince
our city's other three new car dealers to
withdraw their ads."
Editors seem to define "amount of
pressure" not by the number of an ad-
vertiser's demands, but by the size of the
account. One editor, answering posi-
tively to whether advertisers succeeded
in influencing content, said, "but it de-
pends on how big the advertising ac-
count is. Small advertiser threats are
generally ignored."
The study finds a change in advertis-
ing and journalistic values may be occur-
ring, as one editor wrote, "This problem
has worsened considerably over the past
couple of years along with competition
for ad dollars. It is essential that editors
and publishers are of one mind on this
so as to withstand internal and external
pressures."
The survey question about whether
newspapers "seldom run stories which
advertisers would find critical" was in
cluded to examine whether editors felt
that the critical edge in newspapers
had been eroded by their capitulating
to advertisers.
Eighty-five percent of the editors dis-
agreed, indicating that they felt for the
most part that they were still doing their
job. One editor wrote, "Advertisers try to
influence us constantly with their attacks
of grumbling, and inevitably they win
minor victories, but, on the issues that
matter, we still tell them all to go to hell,
and we still get away with it" E&P
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