Advertising Age - MediaWorks - Giuliani Also Gets Liberal Discount From Times
MoveOn told ABC's Jake Tapper that the group paid $65,000 for a Sept. 10 ad accusing General David Petraeus of "cooking the books for the White House" in his status reports on Iraq. The Times rate card implies that weekday, full-page, black-and-white cause, appeal or political ads cost $181,692.
A post on the blog Confederate Yankee soon noted the disparity. "While I'm fairly certain that nobody pays 'sticker' prices, 61% off seems a rather sweet deal," his post said. The New York Post picked up the story yesterday, running a piece headlined "Times Gives Lefties a Hefty Discount for 'Betray Us' Ad" and followed up with another article and an editorial today. "Citing the shared liberal bias of the group and the Times," the Post wrote, "one Republican aide on Capitol Hill speculated that it was the 'family discount.'"
Mr. Giuliani, speaking in Atlanta yesterday [September 13], demanded that the Times apologize and offer him the same price.
But MoveOn bought its ad on a "standby" basis, under which it can ask for a day and placement in the paper but doesn't get any guarantees. Standby pricing doesn't appear on the Times rate card -- but that kind of ad at a standby rate turns out to run about $65,000.
And that's what the Giuliani campaign paid as well, according to one person close to the Times, for its counter ad today berating MoveOn and, in turn, Hillary Clinton for refusing to denounce the "Betray Us" ad.
In my favorite Daffy Duck cartoon, "Conrad The Sailor" (Warner Bros. 1942), Daffy torments Conrad (voiced by the fantastic Pinto Colvig who was also Disney's Goofy and the original Bozo the Clown) by, among other things, subbing a bucket of paint for Conrad's mop bucket.
Drawing Conrad's attention to the huge swath of paint-swabbed deck behind him, Daffy says, "Very sloppy, Roscoe. You're a slovenly housekeeper."
And that's what this story about MoveOn and Rudy will forever be: a case of slovenly reportage. Sure, Advertising Age is reporting the truth, that nobody got their back scratched in the deal for the MoveOn ad, but how many people will ever read the AdAge "correction"?
Instead, Ma and Pa from Peoria will forever see the Times and MoveOn as bedfellows.
This is not to say that things never work in the other direction and that mis- and disinformation about right-wing groups never gets corrected satisfactorily.
This is to say, though, that Big Media is woefully neglectful of printing simple truths where anything political is involved.
Swift and wide reportage of the fact that the Giuliani camp was flat out wrong would have been the right thing to do. It would have stopped the intent of the Giuliani ad - to water down MoveOn's opinion and it would have proven that the Media is there to do something besides take money for ad space.
