Fer cryin’ out loud, the day before the advert ran they printed a huge puff piece on MoveOn.org’s “Americans Against Escalation in Iraq” in their Sunday Magazine… why’d they bother charging MoveOn.org anything at all? According to that monstrosity known as McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform, couldn’t this “discount” be considered an “in kind” contribution?
[UPDATE: Answer seems to be "You Betcha"]
According to Abbe Serphos, director of public relations for the Times, “the open rate for an ad of that size and type is $181,692.”
A spokesman for MoveOn.org confirmed to The Post that the liberal activist group had paid only $65,000 for the ad – a reduction of more than $116,000 from the stated rate.
A Post reporter who called the Times advertising department yesterday without identifying himself was quoted a price of $167,000 for a full-page black-and-white ad on a Monday.
Considering how their stock has been tanking, you’d imagine that shareholders–even some from the controlling Sulzberger clan–should be freaking out right now. Doing something like this just further dilutes an already watered down reputation, and most likely lead to more erosion of their subscription rolls, all to further Pinch and his editors’ political agenda, a cabal who are willing to ignore the bottom line and continue trashing the company’s brand by pulling stunts like this….
Will this be enough for enough of their Class “A” shareholders to finally say “Enough!” and bring Pinchy to heel (or show his ass out the door) before their shares are worthless pieces of paper?
Coda: Lot’s of newspapers and other media outlets have ripped on MoveOn.org for that slanderous advert, but I haven’t seen hardly any condemnation from them aimed at the Times for running it.
TC…this and other fairly recent issues with the NYT makes me wonder what newspaper they have cadets reading up at Harvard on the Hudson. In my day, one of the easiest of plebe duties was delivering the papers every morning. Dropping them at the doors of the upperclassman while they snoozed was a low risk activity.
Yes, throughout my four years of incarceration I came to enjoy the Times…but through the years it’s definitely headed decidedly to the left. I’m guessing that today there aren’t any old fashioned papers…but the news is something you’d read online. Hope they’ve got a decent feed to some real news and not this bullshit we’re being fed.
If I were the IT guru up there these days…I think I’d block that site from network access.
See you on the high ground!
MajorDad1984
P.S. What do you hear from Hash?
He’s tossed one comment my way since the banninating transgression occurred. I deleted it. He’s not listed as “spam,” so his rejection(s) will not happen through the magic of automation… he gets kicked by my hand.
Back when I tossed him I was explicit when I laid out the terms that would allow him to once again leave comments here. And, like I said back then, knowing the hashman, it ain’t never gonna happen.
I’m not happy about it, but it is what it is; you call someone like Billy Ardolino “whore,” you’re not welcome in my bar until you fucking apologize, period. No excuses accepted; groveling (while begging for forgiveness for talking directly out of an uninformed asshole) is not required….
But it certainly could not hurt.
As far as what papers the plebes are handing out, at this point, the Wall Street Journal is the only newspaper that still lands on my lawn every morn. If pressed (I can’t believe I’m saying this), USA Today isn’t totally terrible (compared to the rest of the dreck). In both cases, the editorial sections are sketchy, but the news sections aren’t.
As far as blocking the NYT, when it comes to their hairball hacking Op-Ed columnists, there’s no need; they locked them away behind a “gotta pay” firewall called “Times Select.” It’s the biggest reason you no longer see Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd regularly getting their asses dragged across the coals… no one’s willing to pay for their bullshit.