“Confirmed: NYT gave MoveOn almost two-thirds off on ‘Betray Us’ ad”:
The New York Times dramatically slashed its normal rates for a full-page advertisement for MoveOn.org’s ad questioning the integrity of Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.
Headlined “Cooking the Books for the White House,” the ad which ran in Monday’s Times says Petraeus is “a military man constantly at war with the facts” and concluded – even before he testified before Congress – that “General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.”
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.
Serphos declined to confirm the price and refused to offer any inkling for why the paper would give MoveOn.org such a discounted price.
Via Hot Air, where Allah notes:
Word on the Hill from Politico is that the MoveOn [ad] was a “blunder of the highest order.†Says savvy nutroots pointman for America’s new Democratic center Matt Stoller, “I think it’s awesome. I’m glad MoveOn said it. There’s very little split in the Democrats who, I think, basically believe Petraeus is a partisan shill.â€Â
Very little split among Democrats. Who think a 4-star General approved unanimously to run the Iraq counterinsurgency is a “partisan shill.” That is, he carries water for one political party. And will therefore say whatever that party tells him to say during testimony.
Even if it means perjuring himself, or knowingly sending soldiers to their deaths for a lost cause.
Basically, he’s a puppet being worked by a murderous administration.
Very little split on that.
None of which means they don’t love the troops. Just that, well, they don’t really respect them all that much, and they doubt their integrity.
At least at the leadership level. On the grunt level, they merely pity the poor duped yokels whose poverty and lack of quality breeding has forced them, as a kind of social necessity, into battling the noble savage in an imperial endeavor meant solely to enrich the corporate interests of a tyrannical Republican regime.
And the New York Times, bless her charitable gray lady soul, feels their pain — so much so that she agreed to offer considerable savings on a message she hoped might hasten the end of the war by undermining public trust in its own military leadership.
For our own damn good!
— Which we know to be the case, given that the bloodthirsty warmongers hoping to run a competing ad were bled dry, comparatively.
Objectivity.
Neutrality.
Nuance.
Journalism.
****
(h/t CJ Burch)
Fuckers. Traitors.
I guess its time to oil down and put into use the good ‘ol scare quotes.
‘journalism’.
Un-freaking-believeable.
They publish details of national security plans. They give reduced ad rates to people that share their viewpoint and undermine the leadership of the US military. And on and on and on and on … Can we now safely question their patriotism? Is this not pure evidence that they are a partisan rag?
“Even if it means perjuring himself, or knowingly sending soldiers to their deaths for a lost cause.”
Petraeus lied, people died. The Left likes to dismiss the WOT as a bumper sticker, but it seems that they are the ones who cannot take their thinking above the bumper-sticker level of abstraction.
Nothing new here. The ‘elite’, who control the message delivery on the left, long ago decided that they only had room for one enemy in their heart, and that enemy will forever be the American right in whichever form it takes.
From now on, that rag is the New York/MoveOn Times. You are who you roll with, and the Times has shown who it rolls with.
“Is this not pure evidence that they are a partisan rag?”
Don’t forget that NYT staffers were also caught with their hands in the Wikipedia cookie jar, making derogatory changes to the entries on prominent conservatives.
But, they print Ann Althouse opeds for like free. Like lots of them. She loves them more than beans.
C’mon everyone, the NYT is so flush with cash that Pinch could easily afford to cut some humble progressives a little break, right?
Oops: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=NYT&annual
The point is that the NYT privileges speech all the time. It’s what they do. And otherwise respectable people are inordinately pleased with themselves when they are the beneficiaries. I could name names.
The Left has no problem with this. They have essentially called him a traitor in the NY Times, and it is no stretch to think that they believe that Pres. Bush and Gen. Petraeus would sacrifice our military at the altar of their illegal war.
They really piss me off.
Discounts on ad rates?
Since Pinky Sulzberg took the helm at the Grey lady, the stock has gone from $54 to $20 and subscriptions & ad rates have fallen dramatically. Keep up the good work
Pinky!
“Sedition is patriotic”
“Character assasination is speaking truth to power”
“Smearing our troops is supporting them”
Up is down
Mary-Kate is Ashley
Obama is Osama…..
“Fiddle-de dum, fiddle-de-dee,
the Old Gray Lady is after me!
She wants my shoes and she wants my skin,
There’s none so small that she can’t fit in.”
(The “Old Gray Lady” was a hideous monstrosity disguised as an old hag in the game “Thief: Deadly Shadows.” I, personally, thought of the NYT every time I heard about it… :) )
The NYT has been a hideous crone for decades, it’s no surprise that dishonor is the first thing they seek. Hopefully instead of a straight Soros buyout when the numbers get low enough, the paper will be allowed to pass away peacefully in its sleep.
I’ll celebrate when it costs more to fill my gas tank than to buy a share of NYT stock.
Oh, wait…
WHOO-HOOOOOOO!!!
“Character assasination is speaking truth to powerâ€Â
That’ll change once the Dems control both Congress and the Executive branch. Then, instead of speaking “truth” to power, they will speak truthiness to the out-of-power.
Nope. Speaking the truth is an attacked when the truth is spoken about their fellow travelers.
Petraeus is a PhD and our best general on how to defeat a counter- insurgency. His tactics have worked, dramatically and quickly. No wonder the “Proggs” at MoveOn and NY Times hate him. And don’t question their patriotism. They are very loyal to our opposition, always….
I think it’s normal for smaller papers to negotiate on ad rates*, especially on unused space. If that’s also the case for the NYT, maybe the other buyer just didn’t do as well in negotiating a deal.
*Here’s a description of how it works (albeit with magazines).
Hubris – Are you saying this is not an example of partisanship, but rather, MoveOn was simply a better at negotiation?
Mere coincidence, eh Hubris, that twas MoveOn.org? I suppose their VOLUME buying has stood them in good stead…
I’m saying that’s a possibility. That possibility would potentially be eliminated by hypothetical information such as, for instance, it being revealed that the NYT never negotiates as other papers and magazines do. It would be interesting to hear what a professional display ad buyer has to say on the subject.
You would need to know if MoveOn placed the ad directly or if they have an agency. If they did it themselves as a one-off, that is precisely the sort of situation where the rate should be at or close to rate card.
Mere coincidence, eh Hubris, that twas MoveOn.org?
You’re looking at the one example you know of and asserting that it would be strange for it to be a coincidence because of the assumption that it is anomalous. What if such a disparity in agreed rates is not at all anomalous, would it make you feel differently? What if Lipstick, Inc pays a lot less than Car Company Ventures for ad space on the same day because one says “fine” on the initial quoted rate and the other says “no, I’ll only pay X” because they call the paper’s possible bluff re:unused ad space? Normally it’s like a car deal, they’ll always quote the sucker high price first because heck, some people will pay it.
We all know ad rates are negotiable, Hubris. But the amount of the discount and the comparison with the ad rate for the competing group is suggestive. And let’s face it: there is plenty of other circumstantial evidence to suggest that the NYT would be likely to offer such ideological discounts.
Playing the dutiful skeptic all the time grows tiring. If you don’t think there’s anything to the story here, fine. Agree to disagree. But I’m more likely to argue that the NYT has brought such suspicion on itself for its many other demonstrable efforts to aid a particular ideological viewpoint.
Hubris – what you’re saying doesn’t really make a lot of sense. “Un-sold space” is inventoried as such and is usually marketed by outside brokers, not the in-house sales team. Full page ads, I’ve never heard of that being treated as unsold inventory. I could be wrong about that, but my sense is that brokering full page ads at a non-volume related discount would only serve to depreciate the rate card further.
Also, if the practice is so very common on such a scale as this, would the Post open itself up to stories that it, too, routinely engages in such practices by reporting breathlessly on the Times’ cut rate gift to the MoveOn folk?
Beats me. But my magic eightball says he’s skeptical.
This type of story arises from folks playing the dutiful skeptic vis-a-vis traditional media, so I don’t see anything wrong with applying the same sort of skepticism to the blogospheric story. If the NYT runs a “Cheney gets ‘sweetheart deal’ on property, must have been bribery” story, I’m going to be skeptical. If bloggers say “these limited facts further confirm NYT liberal bias,” I’m going to be skeptical.
happyfeet, sorry if I’m using the wrong terminology–if you’re in the business I will defer to your expertise.
Yes, but individual advertisers don’t have any negotiating leverage. This is a key reason why agencies and media buyers have a value added proposition – they can steer business in volume to print vehicles.
No – definitely you should keep exploring – I work tangentially to that stuff, not directly with it. It’s just my sense that the story makes sense as described… someone at the NYT had to approve a one-off deviation from rate-card for an individual advertiser. Joe Sales Guy can’t do that. If MoveOn has representation, then that would leave a lot more room for speculation though.
There’s a difference between being skeptical (neither Allah nor I posted about the ad rates initially, after Bob Owens looked into it) and being ostentatious about your skepticism.
And I say that only because I’ve noticed that the only time you ever comment is to introduce us to your skepticism.
Which is your prerogative, but perhaps you can see how it might rub some people the wrong way.
After all, I like me some positive reinforcement from time to time, too, Hubris.
PRICK ME, DO I NOT BLEED?
I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me why WA radio jocks speaking in favor of a referendum are found to have made a campaign contribution valued at their normal airtime rate, while the NYT can give away entire pages to candidates and lobbies for fire sale prices without such worry.
Ok, I’m confused. There, I said it!
I’m seeing all these calls to “boycott the NYT” – ok, fine. But none of them explains how you boycott a paper that, basically, nobody buys…
I usually only comment on sites when I feel that people are skipping over something on the topic; it’s not being ostentatious in my skepticism, it’s limiting my participation to when I feel that I have something to contribute that has not been presented or considered. I also try to keep my comments confined to relatively objective issues because there doesn’t seem to be much of a point to debating the more subjective issues. If that seems ostentatious…[shrug]. As for positive reinforcement, I would agree with your posts asserting that the “Bush report” construction is fallacious.
These days my “damn straight” comments are limited to agreeing with, say, a Michele Catalano post on the Wu-Tang Clan.
P.S. happyfeet, thanks for the info
I dunno, Hubris could be right, if you look at the stock prices quoted above.
I mean, a record like that is not the work of what you might call a business genius.
Of course, I’d like that theory a lot more if they were even somewhat even-handed in their reporting.
A while back Billy Hollis over at Q and O suggested that Starbucks might like to buy the NYT, seeing as how the Old Gray Lady is so integral to the Starbucks ambience.
If the stock price dips any lower the masthead might read “Starbucks Latte Times.”
“Mathis (NYT’s spokeswoman) confirmed the open rate for an ad of that size and type was around $181,000. Among reasons for lower rates are advertisers buying in bulk or taking a standby rate, she said.”
I’m assuming a standby rate is for last minute space fills. Obviously MoveOn didn’t buy in balk and they most certainly timed the ad to coincide with Petraeus’s testimony.
Next
Sorry, that’s bulk
And why the NY Times of all places – was USA Today out of full page ad space? What about the WSJ?
I would think that monday is the best day for ad sales, given the preponderence new promotion roll outs, marketign campaigns, etc, etc. That on a Monday the NYT gives a discount to a “charity” to attack a General making a speech about a War that the Times has opposed and worked actively to oppose? To not raise suspicion of motive would require one to be dead, as Bin Laden, frankly.
[…] Heading Right, Hot Air, protein wisdom, Captain’s Quarters, The Carpetbagger Report, NewsBusters.org, The Corner, Washington Times, […]
John Cole takes a break from discussing the MTII to ask:
Hubris, I have a question – do you agree with MoveOn’s position, or do you think that it is reprehensible to claim that the commanding general on the ground is a traitor and a liar, with nothing supporting that claim but ideological bias?
Well I’m also in marketing and I think it could have been a volume discount. After all, MoveOn is buying the entire news section and the entire editorial page except for David Brooks, every day.
Seriously, it would be ironic if it weren’t so disgusting that the NYT runs the “Betray Us” ad after revealing the terrorist surveillance program and the financial surveillance (SWIFT?) program, and advocating we betray the Iraqis and let genocide occur. Did I say disgusting? Let me try again. Evil.
Drumwaster – I will not speak for Hubris, but I suspect he disagress with the ad, and thinks it is reprehensible. But I could be wrong, though unlikely. In my experience, he tends to be more right of center than he comes across, and usually errs on the side of fairness. At any rate, my opinion is only based on my experience with him. And, his Roadhouse series on his old blog was fucking priceless.
If moveon.org knew the ad space should have cost $181,000 dollars, why would they admit to paying $65,000? If I could get my ads into the Times for a third of the cost that my competition pays, I’d keep my mouth shut.
rebarbarian – Nobody ever said that the folks at moveon were the brightest bulb in the chandelier.
Brooks is a deeply effete, lispy, prissy, useless man. He is substantial enough to maybe counterweight the chardonnay he sips, but that’s about it.
[…] to General David Petraeus: I entreat my friends not to trouble themselves about refuting the slanders and calumnies aimed at […]