The recent decision by General Motors to pull its advertising from
the Los Angeles Times has not gone over very well.
“Blame the press,” Daily Variety scoffed in mid-April, after
several days of publicity about the automaker’s move. “That’s the latest
coping mechanism for General Motors, whose slumping share price and
falling profits have generated a wave of negative media coverage. ... GM
isn’t the first Fortune 500 company to retaliate against a newspaper’s
editorial coverage by taking a punch at its ad division. But most
companies understand the tactic just doesn’t work; it only generates
more bad coverage.”
In the Motor City, the Detroit News business writer Daniel Howes
told readers that the monetary slap at the L.A. Times exposes “GM’s
thinning corporate skin.” Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam had this to
say: “On the one hand, the decision, which may affect up to $20 million
in ad spending, sends a powerful message to the Times. On the other
hand, it sends a powerful message to the country about the idiots who
are running GM.”
Drawing more attention to GM’s financial woes, the ad-yanking
gambit is likely to backfire. But news outlets are far from immune to
advertiser pressure.
By coincidence, the conflict between General Motors and the L.A.
Times went public just as a new report highlighted the media clout of
advertisers and other powerful interests in business and government. The
media watch group FAIR (where I’m an associate) released the results of
its fifth annual “Fear & Favor” report on “how power shapes the news.”
The FAIR report, by Peter Hart and Julie Hollar, provides context
with sobering information: “A survey of media workers by four industry
labor unions found respondents concerned about ‘pressure from
advertisers trying to shape coverage’ as well as ‘outside control of
editorial policy.’ In May [2004], the Pew Research Center for the People
& the Press released a survey of media professionals that found
reporters concerned about how bottom-line pressures were affecting news
quality and integrity. In their summary ... Bill Kovach, Tom Rosensteil
and Amy Mitchell wrote that journalists ‘report more cases of
advertisers and owners breaching the independence of the newsroom.’”
Among the examples in the new “Fear & Favor” report
are these gems:
* Last July, “when furniture giant Ikea opened a new store in New
Haven, Conn., the New Haven Register cranked out 12 Ikea stories in
eight straight days -- accompanied by at least 17 photographs and a
sidebar on product information -- with headlines such as ‘Ikea’s Focus
on Child Labor Issues Reflects Ethic of Social Responsibility’ and ‘Ikea
Employees Take Pride in Level of Responsibility Company Affords Them.’
... The back-scratching reached its apex the day of the grand opening,
when the Register heralded the arrival of Ikea and fellow super-store
Wal-Mart and remarked upon Ikea’s ‘astonishingly low prices -- a coffee
table for $99, a flowing watering can for $1.99, a woven rocking chair,
$59.’ Sound like an ad? It was the Register’s lead editorial.”
* In January 2004, Boston Herald readers “could easily have
mistaken the paper’s front-page ad for news. When discount airline
JetBlue launched several new flight services out of Boston’s Logan
Airport, Bostonians who picked up a free promotional Herald that day
found that every item on the front page was devoted exclusively to the
airline, including the lead headline, ‘JetBlue Arrives, Promises a Free
TV to All Who Fly,’ and teasers like ‘Flight Attendant Gives Passenger
Entire Can of Soda.’ After the front page, the paper resumed its actual
news content -- but nowhere did the Herald indicate that its front page
was in fact a paid advertisement, and the 20,000 recipients of the promo
paper missed out on the actual front-page news of the day.”
* When a TV station in Kirksville, Mo., “ran a news report that
quoted a company that didn’t advertise on the station rather than a
competitor that did, the angry advertiser pulled its ads from the
station. KTVO vice president and general manager Crystal Amini-Rad
quickly apologized to the sales staff in a memo that also required news
reporters to ‘have access to an active advertiser list ... of sources
which you can tap into’ for expert opinion and industry comment -- and
told reporters that they ‘should always go’ to station advertisers first
on any story.”
* In Silver City, N.M., when KNFT Radio “brought on progressive
host Kyle Johnson as an alternative to the seven hours of Rush Limbaugh,
Michael Savage and Bill O’Reilly the station aired every weekday, KNFT’s
advertisers boycotted the show. The station made Johnson raise the cash
to pay for his airtime, and his listeners anted up. But the advertisers
threatened to boycott the entire station if Johnson stayed on; faced
with the prospect of a nearly $10,000-a-month loss, the station manager
reluctantly gave the progressive host the boot.”
Such incidents are low profile, in contrast to the recent General
Motors move against the Los Angeles Times. But the most insidious
instances of advertiser pressure are the ones we never hear about --
implemented with winks and nods or the simple tacit understanding that
the media business is, after all, a business. In the mysterious case of
why mainstream news outlets aren’t more aggressive in challenging
corporate power large and small, Sherlock Holmes would probably conclude
that the most profound clues are to be found when the media dogs don’t
bark.
We hear the least about the most pervasive media filtration -- when
thoughts go nowhere because journalists have been made to understand the
limits of their profession in the present day. Advertising is part of
the corporatized atmosphere that sucks the oxygen out of the newsrooms.
The sound of an idea being smothered in its crib doesn’t rise to the
decibels of a bark or even a whimper. And media consumers don’t know
what they’re missing.
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Norman Solomon’s latest book, “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits
Keep Spinning Us to Death,” will be published in early summer. His
columns and other writings can be found at:
www.normansolomon.com