The American Medical Association Alliance issues periodic reports on depictions of smoking in popular movies. The group seemed to come up with a good way to publicize their findings--that is, until corporate reality intervened:  

In May, the organization, working with the Los Angeles Department of Public Health, announced that the studio found to be the biggest smoking offender would be publicly shamed on nearby billboards. But billboard vendors throughout Los Angeles--which the alliance said are heavily dependent on entertainment industry advertising--refused to run the ad, according to Ms. Kyler.

"It's a sad day when movie studios can promote smoking to youth, but public health advocates cannot find a billboard in the whole city of Los Angeles that will run an ad to alert the public about the problem," she said.

The worst smoking-in-movies offender, by the way, was Universal--a studio mainly owned by General Electric. The country's two biggest billboard companies are both also major players in the broadcasting industry--Clear Channel and CBS.

A Tiny Revolution's John Caruso (9/5/09) caught an instance of the Public Broadcasting System "Putting the 'BS' in PBS" when they recently "took a break to blandish us thusly: 'If you are seeking a unique sponsorship opportunity for your business and want to reach a prime demographic group through multiple platforms email us today.'"

Reacting to the crass appeal for a California Bay Area underwriter, Caruso reminds the broadcasters: "C'mon, guys, we're sitting right here. Can't you at least do us the courtesy of being subtle about the fact that as far as you're concerned, we're nothing but pairs of eyes for corporate sponsors?"

Citing 15-year-old FAIR warnings of the hazards of such "enhanced underwriting," Caruso also remembers

a day not that long ago when PBS's purpose was to provide, you know, broadcasting services for the public. Now that they're just selling audiences to advertisers like the rest of the corporate media, they really should change the name—though I suppose "Supplier of Prime Demographic Groups to Underwriters through Multiple Platforms" doesn't quite have the same ring (and SPDGUMP doesn't exactly roll off the tongue either).

Caruso even has a suggested rewrite of their longtime "standard sponsorship message as well": "This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from Upwardly Mobile Middle Class Consumers Like You. Thank You! But seriously, we're just as happy getting our money from ExxonMobil."

Laura Northrup of Consumerist.com (8/15/09) reports that, after 40 years at the Hartford Courant, consumer affairs columnist George Gombossy now says he "'was fired for doing [his] job,' after his last column exposed the bedbug-infested mattresses sold by a major Courant advertiser."

The Connecticut paper killed Gombossy's account of an Attorney General investigation into Sleepy's--though it has published a stock defense that "our advertisers have no influence on what we report, including stories that may include them."

Gombossy exposes "some issues of credibility" when responding to the Courant's further claim that he "knew his job was being eliminated while we moved to a Courant-Fox 61 newly-defined consumer reporter position. He did not express interest in the position":

I wasn’t asked to apply for the job, nor was it offered to me, and it was set at a significant amount less than my salary....

I have been waiting for Courant management to get around to explaining to its staff why I was no longer there after 40 years--especially since management told everyone how they loved my column and blog until the first advertiser complaint came in May....

The new Courant policy which was instituted in May as the result of a complaint against me by Aiello, required me and all reporters and columnists to notify [VP and director of content] Jeff Levine or [editor] Naedine Hazell of any stories or columns that even had a negative tinge about a key advertiser. Naedine knows that, she must think she can just gloss over that little fact.

Those stories and columns would get special attention--Just like the Sleepy’s column did.

Media Matters research director Jeremy Schulman (8/12/09) writes that "Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs have used their radio and television shows to incite hatred and push wild conspiracy theories, leading several of Beck's advertisers to reportedly pull out of his broadcasts"--one of the hazards inherent in for-profit media.

But "many advertisers have nonetheless sponsored these hosts' hate speech in recent weeks, including major corporations and organizations that, in 2006, reportedly requested that ABC Radio Networks not air their advertisements during any Air America programs":

At the time,

ABC subsequently provided a statement to Media Matters, which read: "It is not uncommon for advertisers and/or agencies to request that their ads run or not run in specific programming environments or dayparts. ABC Radio Networks does not solicit nor encourage these requests from advertisers. If a request is made by an advertiser and /or agency we make our best effort to comply."...

The New York Times reported at the time that "the advertisers' avoidance of Air America's liberal programming seems pointed when contrasted with the commercial success of right-wing talk radio programs like those of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity." [New York Times, 11/6/06]

Indeed, Schulman tells us how, "despite their appearance on ABC's Air America 'blackout' list in 2006, a number of those same advertisers have recently run ads during broadcasts of one or more of the following: Limbaugh's radio show, Beck's Fox News show, Beck's radio show, Dobbs' CNN show and Dobbs' radio show." He then provides for your perusal a handy list of said advertisers, including--no surprise--General Electric.

The business department at the Washington Post has gotten into trouble in what may be a case of too much truth in advertising.

As reported by Politico (7/2/09), the Post circulated a flyer offering--for the low, low cost of $25,000--an "intimate and exclusive Washington Post salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and publisher Katharine Weymouth." The circular promised the participation of "key Obama administration and congressional leaders" as well as "healthcare reporting and editorial staff members of the Washington Post."

Lest anyone be confused as to why dinner at the Post's publisher's house would be worth $25,000, the flyer helpfully points out that "an evening with the right people can alter the debate." It calls the event "an exclusive opportunity to participate in the healthcare reform debate among the select few who will actually get it done." It's quite straightforward: The Post is offering to help a deep-pocketed customer an opportunity to alter the healthcare reform process by granting access to government officials and its own journalists.

Naturally, one is not allowed to be that honest about the relationship between money, power and journalism in Washington, D.C.  A Post spokesperson told Politico that the advertisement was released "before it was properly vetted," and that the "draft does not represent what the company's vision for these dinners are, which is meant to be an independent, policy-oriented event for newsmakers." Boy, that doesn't sound as much like it's worth 25 grand, does it?

Post publisher Katharine Weymouth then did an interview with employee Howard Kurtz in which she vowed they were "not going to do any dinners that would impugn the integrity of the newsroom." But she was aware "of the plans to host small dinners at her home and to charge lobbying and trade organizations for participation." And Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli said that "he had been involved in discussions, stretching back to last year, about newsroom participation in conferences"--but the good kind of conference, not the kind that makes you look like a sleazy influence-peddler.

So it looks like they're going to go ahead with these things--"We do believe there is an opportunity to have a conferences and events business, and that the Post should be leading these conversations," the Post statement to Politico said--but presumably next time they won't market them so nakedly as an exchange of money for power.  Don't worry, Post Co., your clients will still know what they're buying.

Ishmael Reed's contextualization (CounterPunch, 6/29/09) of the epic demonization of Michael Jackson within historical U.S. media racism also takes a swipe at CNN's Black in America program, "an exercise meant to boost ratings by making whites feel good by making blacks look bad, the marketing strategy of the mass media since the 1830s":

In preparing for a sequel to the first Black in America, which boosted the networks ratings (the O. J. trial saved CNN!), CNN rolled out the usual stereotypes about black Americans. Unmarried black mothers were exhibited, without mentioning that births to unmarried black women have plunged since 1976 more than that of any other ethnic group. Then we got some footage that implied that blacks as a group were homophobes even though Charles Blow, a statistician for the New York Times, recently published a chart showing that gays have the least to fear from blacks. Recently, the media perpetrated a hoax that blacks were responsible for the passage of Proposition 8, the California proposition that banned gay marriage. An academic study refuted this claim, but that didn't deter the New York Times from hiring Benjamin Schwarz to explain black homophobia. Schwarz is the writer who wrote in the Los Angeles Times that blacks who were victims of lynchings in the south were probably guilty.

In the last Black in America, Soledad O'Brien, CNN's designated tough love agent against the brothers and sisters, scolded a black man for not attending his daughter's birthday party. The aim of this scene was meant to humiliate black men as neglectful fathers. Ms. O'Brien won’t be permitted by her employees to mention that 75 percent of white children will live at one time or another in a single-parent household and that the governor of South Carolina's not showing up for Father's Day isn't just a lone aberration in "White America."

On that note, Reed wonders, "How would CNN promote a White in America?" Would they feature "the thousands of meth addicts who have abandoned their children? The California rural and suburban white women who do more dope than Latino and black youth?" And if not, "Why not? Can’t get State Farm, Ford and McDonald's to sponsor such a program? All of these companies are sponsoring Black in America"--"the aim of which," Reed reminds us, "is to cast collective blame on blacks for the country's social problems. For ratings."

MSNBC's Morning Joe program seems to have turned its conspicuous consumption of Starbucks drinks into a paid commercial for the coffee chain, according to this morning's New York Times (6/1/09). As Brian Stelter put it, Joe Scarborough "sips Frappuccinos on camera so often that some viewers have wondered whether it is a form of product placement, paid for by the coffee company. Starting Monday, it will be."

The deal is worth over $10 million, and will include "Starbucks graphics and mentions during each hour of the 6 to 9 a.m. program." The show might even broadcast from Starbucks locations from time to time.

Conflict of interest? MSNBC president Phil Griffins says no way:

Mr. Griffin said Morning Joe would continue to cover Starbucks as a news item if warranted. "They understand that we have standards," he said.

Standards indeed.

Current Anti-Advertising Agency CEO Steve Lambert and founder Jordan Selier have posted (AntiAdvertisingAgency.com, 5/12/09) their letter to the New York Times responding to a May 11 piece that cites one NYC advertising executive asking, "All you have to do is walk out the door for lunch and notice the number of vacant storefronts... so why not get in there and put a message in there?":

I know why not, because it's a crime! And I was disappointed that the Times didn't mention this. Outdoor advertising is regulated by the Department of Buildings for several reasons; so billboards aren't erected in dangerous places and ways, to regulate advertising to specific districts keeping the city livable, and to prevent persuasive messages from being placed anywhere and everywhere a corporation can buy space.

The Department of Buildings has strict regulations on size and these storefronts turned billboards are simply too large for nearly every commercial district in New York with the exception of Times Square.

Deeming the Times "mistaken in reporting on this as a 'thriving' type of advertising emerging from declining economy," Lambert and Selier would rather the paper "call it what it is, advertisers desperate for profits, committing organized crime and hurting the livability of our city"--and even urge "New Yorkers who care" to "have them removed! Or just tear them down themselves."

New York Times editorialist Lawrence Downes (5/4/09) has some good questions about Pete Seeger's big 90th birthday party. The broadcast surely is bound to "be a PBS special made in pledge-week heaven," but Downes has to "wonder, though, how many of the angry moments will survive":

Will we hear the Native American musicians pleading for support in their battle with Peabody Energy? Peabody is a giant strip-mining company that has been at the center of lawsuits by Southwestern tribes over drinking water and income from mineral rights.

Will we hear the praise for the Clean Water Act of 1972, or the acid remark from one of the Indians: "Ever since that man by the name of Hudson went up that river, it's gone to hell."

The evening was, after all, a benefit for Clearwater, the name of an organization and a boat, both built by Mr. Seeger, that have fought for decades to rescue the Hudson River from life as an industrial sewer. The job isn’t done. Remember PCBs? General Electric dumped tons of them in the river. The company is about ready to dredge them out, but for now they are still there, seeping downriver and into fish.

Some insight into the priorities likely to hold sway in PBS's editing process may be gleaned from the "public" network's long-standing close relationship with at least one major sponsor... General Electric.

Reporting that "marketers are running advertisements on the covers of some publications," Stuart Elliott (New York Times, 3/11/09) reviews past precedents--"the February issue of Esquire broke ground with a window, or flap, in the middle of the cover under which [was] an ad for...a series on the Discovery Channel" and "a hole in the [1990] Omni cover through which readers could see...part of a Motorola ad"--and says the present results have a familiar target:

The April issue of Scholastic Parent & Child, scheduled to come out on Monday, will carry an ad on the front cover for the first time in the 16-year history of the magazine. The ad, for a company called Smilebox, will appear in the lower right corner of the cover and carry the label "advertisement" in small type....

The American Society of Magazine Editors concluded that... the ad on the cover of Scholastic Parent & Child "is a violation" [of "the society’s guidelines on ad acceptability"], said Sid Holt, chief executive at the society in New York.

"It's unfortunate because it has the potential to tell readers and advertisers that editorial is for sale," he added.... "The guidelines are very clear that the cover is editorial space and advertising should not appear."

Elliott also cites the influential fact that "a print sibling, the newspaper, has reconsidered decades-old rules against display ads on section fronts or even front pages... 'like what the New York Times is doing.'"

Neurologist Robert Burton warns Salon readers (3/12/09, ad-viewing required) of PBS's latest infomercial. "By airing another self-help show disguised as medical science--the dubious UltraMind Solution--the public network continues to undermine its credibility," Burton writes:

In May I reported that PBS stations were airing medical programs that weren't adequately reviewed or vetted by either the local station or parent PBS corporation. My concern was that publicly funded stations were broadcasting questionable medical claims, made by Daniel Amen, M.D., about unproven methods for the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease, without properly warning viewers the information was controversial. I suggested that, at the very least, the stations should present a clearly visible banner or disclaimer that the program doesn't represent the views of the local station or PBS....

Unfortunately, nearly a year has passed and nothing has changed. Last week, I turned to my local PBS station, KQED, and ran headlong into yet another program of medical self-promotion. Mark Hyman, M.D., a family physician, was talking about "brain fog" and "broken minds" and how such "conditions" could be cured or prevented by using "The UltraMind Solution"--a combination of books, DVDs and home questionnaires.

Hyman's truly insane claim that "diseases don't exist" spurs Burton to exclaim that airing such "dubious science" serves to "demean viewers' reasons for watching public television. Apparently PBS's mission is to raise money by exploiting viewers' gullibility at the expense of trustworthy programming. If so, it has achieved its goal--and undermined the central reason for having educational TV in the first place."

Los Angeles Times reporter Mike Dorning has some important information (3/6/09) absent from coverage of Dr. Sanjay Gupta's recent surgeon general candidacy--"For several years, Gupta has been co-anchor of a CNN-produced healthcare show distributed monthly via flat-screen TVs provided free to doctor's offices":

The show is sponsored by healthcare, consumer and pharmaceutical companies that want to get their message directly to patients, according to the website of AccentHealth, a privately held company that distributes the programs and sells them to advertisers.

Dr. Quentin Young--who heads Physicians for a National Health Program, a group that advocates for single-payer, Canadian-style national health insurance and other changes in the present system--and other critics cited occasions when Gupta favorably mentioned sponsors' brand-name drugs.

"His record is not a good one here," Young said.

While Dorning gives space to such unsupported CNN platitudes as "Gupta's on-air comments had always been under the editorial control of CNN and unrelated to any advertising contracts" and "Dr. Gupta has no relationship with the advertisers of the program--monetarily, editorially or otherwise," regular FAIR readers have known of Gupta's untrustworthiness for years; for more critique of CNN's medical coverage, see our current Action Alert: "CNN: Single-Payer Is So '90s: Medical Reporter Warns Against 'Government-Run Health System'" (3/12/09)

Expressing "concern that these deals could break FCC rules about commercial clients within news programs," the New York Daily News' Richard Huff reports (2/10/09) a local scandal related to the WPIX/Channel 11 Pix Morning News program that "features a local restaurant chef whipping up a meal and often an anchor talking about a chance for viewers to purchase discounted coupons to the restaurant":

What's not said, however, is that some of those appearances are part of a marketing agreement in which the restaurant gives the station 100 $100 gift certificates and gets a guarantee of on-air time during the Pix Morning News.

The coupons, worth $10,000 altogether, are sold on WPIX/Channel 11's Web site for half their face value, with the revenue going to Channel 11 and a corporation that handles the coupon distribution.

One marketing plan obtained by the Daily News clearly stated to the restaurant being pitched that in exchange for the coupons, the customer got on-air time--not a commercial--during the weekly "Dining Pix" segment.

The crucial--and potentially illegal--part is that "the on-air segments are not labeled commercials, but rather pitched as something the restaurants are doing to give diners a discount on food in hard times." But Huff is not fooled: "since Channel 11 keeps some of the money from the coupon sales, in a way, the ad-sales department is selling part of the program to a client."

FAIR has a new action alert out calling on New York public TV station WNET to reject a $1 million grant to report on Social Security and healthcare from a foundation that supports cuts in Social Security and opposes universal healthcare.  Please post letters that you send to WNET in the comments section of this post.

Walter Isaacson's Time cover story ("How to Save Your Newspaper") finds the magazine's former editor offering advice for the ailing corporate media. As he (and others in the business) see it, the problem is that news is now being consumed online for free, which of course makes it difficult to turn a profit (or, more to the point, the kind of profit expected by Wall Street investors).

And internet content is supported almost entirely by advertising revenue, which Isaacson sees a potentially dangerous path:

Henry Luce, a co-founder of TIME, disdained the notion of giveaway publications that relied solely on ad revenue. He called that formula "morally abhorrent" and also "economically self-defeating." That was because he believed that good journalism required that a publication's primary duty be to its readers, not to its advertisers. In an advertising-only revenue model, the incentive is perverse. It is also self-defeating, because eventually you will weaken your bond with your readers if you do not feel directly dependent on them for your revenue.

Isaacson sees some papers experimenting with web-centric models, which is a problem:

These approaches, however, still make a publication completely beholden to its advertisers.

Huh. This is a little strange. Isaacson's point is that newspapers and magazines depend on a three-legged revenue stool--subscribers, newsstand sales and advertisers--and that relying too heavily on that third leg is a problem. But it's odd to treat this as a future or emerging problem for corporate media. Advertising revenue is traditionally much more important to a newspaper's bottom line than subscription revenue. Television and radio are almost entirely dependent on commercial money. And journalists have reported for years that pressure from advertisers threatens editorial independence (along with corporate ownership). One recent survey warned of “pressure from advertisers trying to shape coverage” and “outside control of editorial policy.” Another found that journalists “report more cases of advertisers and owners breaching the independence of the newsroom.” The dangers of relying on corporate advertisers should be well-known by now. And maybe--just maybe--such bottom-line pressures have helped create the problem facing Big Media today.

As for Time-- they've made their own curious deals with advertisers (this one, I believe, may have even happened on Isaacson's watch):

Time magazine's Spring 2000 issue was the culmination of the magazine's "Heroes for the Planet" series. Launched in 1998, the series "profiled individuals around the globe who are working to protect the natural world" (Time, Spring 2000). But Time made clear from the outset that not all environmental issues would get equal treatment. That's because the "Heroes for the Planet" series has an exclusive sponsor: Ford Motor Co. Asked about the conflict of interest presumed by having an automobile company sponsor an environmental series, Time's international editor admitted to the Wall Street Journal (9/21/98) that, no, the series wasn't likely to profile environmentalists battling the polluting auto industry. After all, Alexander explained, "we don't run airline ads next to stories about airline crashes."