Ethics policy on ad content:
Community-based argument looks at the general interests of the
community and what is for the greatest good of the greatest
number, knowing that certain minority groups might be offended
or hurt.
Rights-based arguments appeal to the rights of either the advertiser
(free speech) or the rights of members of the community to be
free from certain kinds of informational messages (privacy).
Duty-based arguments argue a duty to something larger than self
(the community) to which we owe something and in the presence
of which we have to sometimes restrict our entitlement claims
and our interests.
Character-based arguments invite us to scrutinize our motives
as individuals and as a culture. What are they up to when they
make a decision to publish or not publish certain types of materials?
Is this organization honest? greedy? courageous? just? fair?
There are any number of different virtue categories.
Institutionalizing conscience - or ethical values - includes
respect for community standards and stakeholder interests. Respect
is impossible without awareness and awareness may be impossible
without systematic listening. To the extent that an organization
wants to be conscientious in its approach to these controversial
issues, it behooves the organization to internalize some kind
of sensor that reaches out to understand what community standards
really are and then tries to internalize those.
The News Council forum is a beginning of the process of listening.
Gilson: Joel Kramer, the publisher of the Star Tribune,
wrote a column a year ago last April in which he essentially
said, "If it's legal, we will advertise it." some
people don't think that is a good enough way to look at it.
We're going to explore that.
[ADS SHOWN]
Here is an institutional kind of ad, "Rape hurts. Preventive
measures. How to fight rape." And right next to it, "Get
an exotic view of the arts at Deja Vu." Some people say,
"What kind of communication is that?" As we used to
say in the TV news business, "Separate stories. Film at
11."
There is objection to movie and television ads that portray
violence against women. WLTE - this station is aware that depictions
of violence against women is an issue that bears careful scrutiny.
Someone was thinking about how to adjust to what they thought
of as community standards.
To be sensitive and responsive to the concerns of our listeners,
this station reserves the right to refuse commercials that contain
content portraying violent acts against women. This applies
to promotional content and not reporting of actual news.
Some people don't like advertising of tobacco. There is no advertising
of tobacco on television. They ask why there should be in print.
Here is a tobacco ad. They generated response among teenagers
for a non-existent cigarette.
Howard Epstein: My name is Howard Epstein and I'm a staff
person with the Hennepin County Prevention Center and the Community
Prevention Coalition and our intent here was to demonstrate
the power of advertising and, particular, or specifically in
this instance, tobacco advertising. The line that the tobacco
industry takes, of course, is that they are not targeting young
people, but with the results that we obtained with this type
of advertising, we found that indeed tobacco ads do attract
a high percentage of young people.
Gilson: Here is a fairly typical layout of ads for hot
sex phone calls. All of a sudden the Reader comes up with a
different approach, which is to remove the histrionics from
that and do this kind of listing. R.T., how did you make a decision
to change?
R.T. Ryback: I would like to come here to you with some
sort of a neatly tied up definition of what we do or do not
use. Unfortunately I can't. That doesn't mean that we haven't
spent time talking about it. In fact, in the six months since
I became publisher we have spent more time talking about this
than almost any other issue. It has been part of what I think
is a very healthy staff discussion, but a very aggressive one,
that basically puts us at a crossroads between two very important
principles that seem to conflict. One is the idea that we are
free speech absolutists.... More than any other media in this
country, our niche (the alternative press) grew up out of the
fact that the mainstream media was not reflecting the diversity
of opinion going on out there. We don't want to be censors.
On the other side of the coin we have written numerous articles
about issues involving violence against women especially, and
violence in society in general. All those issues, and many more,
come together to make us extremely concerned about what types
of ads run in the paper. Those, coupled with what is becoming
an increasingly visible and somewhat disturbing growth of the
porn industry in this community, has made us quite troubled
and really has led to the Reader establishing what is probably
the most restrictive policy in the country, in fact, more restrictive
than the Star Tribune.
At this point we do not take ads from what we consider to be
topless places. But the problem with it is that we found it
absolutely impossible to come up with a definition. We are wrestling
with that. Two principles we are standing up for: one is access,
(people should be able to get the information they want); the
other is self selection; you should not be hit in the face with
something if you do not want it.
Using access and self selection, one of the decisions that we
have made is to aggressively redesign our 900 numbers. 900 numbers
offering adult services are a real growth area in our industry.
They were bringing in lots of money for us and that was terrific.
The problem with it was that it was beginning to overwhelm much
of the other information and was simply putting a foot forward
that, frankly, we didn't feel too proud of putting forward.
We have moved the 900 numbers inside the publication and came
up with some very strict, muted design guidelines. We are not
going to have screaming headlines coming out at you. We are
giving people access to the information, however we are allowing
people to select it in and of itself.
One final note: when I came to the job I assumed this would
be a discussion between some free speech absolutists and some
people on the sales staff who simply wanted to sell ads. The
amazing thing that I found is that our sales staff is almost
overwhelmingly against us changing our policy (of not accepting
ads for "Gentlemen's clubs"), in spite of the fact
that there is obviously a great financial upside for them as
well as the publication. Our reps do not want to sell (those
kinds of) ads.
Gilson: What do you estimate the revenue loss to the
Reader this year as a result of this decision?
Ryback: The 900 numbers, I would say several thousand
dollars. By not taking the large display ads for Shieks and
others, multiple thousands of dollars each week.
Gilson: Let's hear from the audience about these kinds
of ads and the decision they made to change.
Patricia Barrera: I work with WHISPER, an organization
that educates the public about prostitution as a system of violence
against women. I think it is important for you to know what
goes on in these clubs that are being advertised that is direct
violence against women... . These ads are basically enabling
men to find out where they can go and act out this kind of behavior.
We see these ads as contributing to the violence against women
and we definitely commend the Twin Cities Reader for taking
this small action. I don't think that mainstream press, or alternative
press, should be involved in enabling men to enact violence
against women.
Ann Reding: Muting it makes no difference. If you are
doing it in bold print or if you are doing it in something you
need a magnifying glass to see, that is still the same thing.
Any child can see that and, as far as displaying these ads,
in Minnesota State Statute 217.95 it specifically states, "any
material that is harmful to minors is prohibited from being
displayed." It doesn't say what size it should be displayed.
How, then can strip joint ads, group sex phone lines, be in
every child's reach via local newspapers which are found in
most homes and every school library?
Tani Keenlyne, Star Tribune Advertising Department: What
prompted you to make this drastic of a change:? Was it internal?
Did you receive a lot of customer comments?
Ryback: We actually received no customer comments. Frankly,
there is very little upside in this community for dropping ads.
In this case we made an internal decision that this was simply
not the foot we wanted to put forward.
Gilson: What does City Pages think about this decision?
Henning: I generally, object to decisions on ad acceptance
policies being made on the basis of a marketing decision. This,
to me, smacks of a marketing decision when a main element going
into the decision is the ads themselves. Downsizing them is
not make a statement as to whether or not they should be there
(and by the way, I believe they should be there).
As a lot of you know, City Pages accepts cigarette ads and liquor
ads and adult phone ads, which by the way I would distinguish
from escort ads which we don't accept. Economically we have
had our racks defaced, we have had boycott campaigns faxed out
to our advertisers. We have had papers removed and certainly
we have had ads pulled. The most notable example is the Aveda
Corporation, which took a stand on this at about, ironically,
the time that the Reader stopped its advertising.
Our position on this is that as long as the ad is not promoting
an illegal activity we will accept the ad.
Gilson:
How about the Star Tribune? Here is the Reader, which decides
not to take Sheiks or Deja Vu ads, yet the Star Tribune takes
those kinds of ads. What is your reasoning on that?
Jim Diaz: First of all, we don't start out with an assumption
that there are some businesses we like and some businesses we
don't and we make our decisions about what to run based on that.
I think there are a lot of things we wish were different about
the adult sex industry and wish they would go away, but we do
feel very strongly that if it is legal we will find a way to
be able to have that message be said.
There are two questions (we ask). One is "Should we take
(this) ad?" Then "What does the ad look like?"
There are some decisions that we do make around taste that are
subjective decisions. It is something we agonize over. It is
something that male and female employees have been involved
in symposiums and seminars and discussions about. We have come
to the conclusion that it is important to be able to convey
messages on the issue of accessibility as was mentioned. But
we will endeavor to try to find ways to make those as acceptable
as possible to the community based on our subjective decision
of community standards of taste.
Nancy Schrader: My name is Nancy Schrader and last fall I filed
a complaint against the Star Tribune. I like to think of the
Star Tribune as in phase two. Phase one was where they were
putting ads such as this "a pornography magazine's best
scenery." Many of these ads are right next to girl's and
boy's sports scores. I am the mother of middle school daughters.
I would feel the same, as do my neighbors, about sons. On April
1, 1994, the baseball section, the Minnesota Twins page where
they had "Under the done, the national pastime - Over at
Sheiks, the other national pastime." Further down, "Help
uncover our new talent." This is not what I would call
a reasonable standard of taste.
Now the ads in phase two are much smaller. They are still many
times on the high school page next to the schedules. This concerns
me greatly. I hope they go to phase three, w which s what the
Twin Cities Reader did. I think it is remarkable what the Reader
did. I have written to Jeffrey Litt when they made this change
and I do commend them.
There are just two other ads I want to mention that were in
the Star Tribune that I think were appalling. In this era of
violence against women, when people are trying to get personhood,
everyone - blacks, Jewish people, women, men - given human dignity
and respect, the Star Tribune put in ads about 1/6 of a page
"Autumn, trees aren't' the only things that go bare."
with pictures of strippers. "We bared it. You loved it.
Megaview." Calling women things is a really big stretch.
How can we teach our children to respect others when the Star
Tribune does this?
Gilson: Jim, in light of what she said, do the guidelines
that Ken Goodpaster laid out at the beginning about the kinds
of things you keep in mind, beyond accessibility, interest you
at all? Do you consider any of the things he was talking about?
Diaz: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, as long ago as
last summer we were discussion having an open forum to get to
this issue of respect coming out of awareness and awareness
coming out of systematic listening. We were interested in creating
forums to be able to get people's feedback We have done that
in the past around the imagery of different minority groups
and, as a result, have increased our learning on the subject.
As we learn more, and as the community's understanding changes,
we want to be reflective of that change in community standards.
But I would say that I think where we would stand pretty strongly
is on the issue of taking the ads in the first place. The language
and the imagery included in the ad is something that is a subjective
decision that could change over time.
Paul Paulson: Hi, Paul Paulson, University of Minnesota.
Jim Diaz, are the advertisers themselves specifically asking
for those particular pages or that particular section or are
they randomly placed? If so, are you considering a policy which
would restrict them from being on certain pages?
Diaz: In general, those positions have been requested
by advertisers by section, based on their perception of the
readership of that section. Our assumption of the readership
they are looking for is high male content. Unfortunately, there
may very well be a high child readership as part of that demographic
content. We have agonized over other places to do it. Should
we create X-rated ghettos for those kinds of ads that we don't
like very much? Should that be in the classified section? Some
people suggested the entertainment section and we do have R-rated
movies there which, presumably, children should not be going
to. But, that is next to the comics and that creates another
set of dilemmas for us.
Susan Berkson: I am Susan Berkson and today I am actually
here for the Association of Women Journalists. Given the ads
that we are looking at, it makes me wonder if there is a double
standard. Ads that are offensive or harmful to other communities
- to people of color or people with disabilities or Native Americans
- are nowhere to be seen and my impression is that if such an
ad ran, there would be a general outcry and it would be pulled
immediately. So why do we continue to see ads that many people
think are offensive and harmful to women and so to the community
as a whole?
Ryback: Could I flip that question a bit because really,
this is the crux of what we are wrestling with. Is the issue
to stop having ads like this or is the issue to expand our parameters
to look at a broader palate of ads that wee should or should
not do? Then we begin to get into an extremely slippery slop
of where do we really draw the line. City Pages may be taking
a hit for this but their publication Minnesota Parent did a
wonderful job on educating people about guns a couple of issues
back. That is terrific and that is a positive thing they did.
What would we as the Reader do if we got a gun ad coming in?
We would probably not run it, but we do not have a policy about
that.
We take cigarette ads. We took an ad for Bucha, which is a phenomenal
restaurant. They ran one of the best art-directed ads we have
seen in a long time and we got enormously negative response
about a woman spilling out of her dress, and rightful so, and
we are not running that ad again, but one by one, you can go
through these advertising categories and recognize that there
is no hard line out there. In our attempt to be a good public
citizen we keep not only getting close to censorship, but not
finding a definition.
Audience member: [What] troubles me is the issue of accessibility.
Accessibility often has to do with who has the money and who
has the power. If you have the dollars to buy those ads, you
get your voice heard. So it really isn't about accessibility
in my mind. And I challenge you to think about that. Accessibility
has more to do with power; you can buy free speech.
Gilson: Steve, as you listen to this about accessibility,
how does the advertiser feel about this?
Bergeson: I think the advertiser, like the journalist,
tends very strongly to view the world in First Amendment terms.
While doing so, they try to be very sensitive to what they perceive
community standards to be. Perhaps it is enlightened self-interest,
but I think there is a definite responsibility that advertisers
feel as well. Nonetheless, advertisers, within the confines
of their own discipline and sense of responsibility and sense
of good taste, in light of the target audience that they are
advertising to, do feel that if what they are doing is advertising
a lawful product, number one, and if they are avoiding engaging
in a deception, number two, then they really ought to have access
to the press. And the press isn't, they feel, in a position
to decide who is a good advertiser and who is a bad advertiser;
who has a socially acceptable product and who has a socially
unacceptable product; who has a monopoly on good taste and who
doesn't.
Gilmor: For the First Amendment to protect an ad, first
of all, the ad must not be misleading or unlawful. Now, the
courts have not been able to deal with the word misleading,
it's too elusive. But unlawful is different. That is the first
part of the test. Then there has to be a substantial governmental
interest to justify the regulation. We were talking about a
statute involving children here, that might constitute a substantial
governmental interest if the ad was litigated. Then the law
must be no more restrictive than necessary to reach the goal.
With respect to this test, the court has had two problems. First
problem is to identify commercial speech, because this test
only applies to commercial speech. So when we are talking about
these kinds of ads, is that commercial speech? Well, it may
be or it may not be. How about ads for abortion services? condoms?
It seems to me that those latter two cases are something more
than ads simply for a product or service because we are getting
into social issues of great significance in our society.
Audience member: Can somebody clarify how free speech
connects to commercial speech. I have read or heard that our
rights as an individual don't necessarily translate to the rights
of advertising and commercial speech.
Gilmor: How can we live in a market economy and not give
some First Amendment protection to commercial speech? Sometimes
the ads are more important than the content they support, and
people read ads. People use ads for all kinds of reasons that
are socially significant. The courts have agreed to give protection
to commercial speech but less protection than you would give
to political speech. As the years go, more and more protection
has been given to commercial speech and advertising is a part
of commercial speech.
Gilson: One interesting example, I don't know how many
of you have seen the Benneton ads, in which there is all kinds
of violence depicted that has nothing to do with the product.
Tom Bartel: Benneton did some ads from, I think, Sarajevo,
where the headline of the ad, as it always is, was "The
Colors of Benneton" and it was a dead person with a huge
pool of blood around them. I thought that was just fabulous
advertising and it showed an amazing bit of conscience on the
part of Benneton to call attention to something that is very
easy for us in the United States to ignore the bloodshed that
is going on over there, and I certainly commend them for it.
But it is shocking.
There are some ads that we caught a bunch of heat for that we
ran both in City Pages and Minnesota Parent that were done by
Fallon McElligott, which were anti-gun ads. They were very shocking
to a lot of people. One that I remember was "Use a gun,
there is somebody in prison who is just your type." Advertising
can, I think, do a lot of good if it is used in that way.
Henning: I appreciate the question about the distinction
between free speech and commercial speech because we really
are in a time period where the news and entertainment are getting
mixed up. The news is supposed to be entertaining and the entertainment
programs are news-like. That is more in broadcast. In the print
arena there is always a tendency for advertiser wanting to make
their ad look like editorial content, which is something we
resist highly.
Schrader: The question I wanted to ask: is it free access
to any periodical for any kind of advertising as long as somebody
has the money? For instance, I'm a resident of Edina and we
have a big parent's group. The high school athletics department
they sell ad space for boys and girls athletics. Say Peter Hafiz
from Deja Vu says, "Here is my $100, I want those high
school boys." What would they do? Would that be censoring?
My beef, Jim, is with the Star Tribune because I need it for
my local and national news. My daughters are in sports. I look
at the business page; I have many professional friends. It is
MY newspaper. You have a monopoly in Edina. They won't deliver
the St. Paul Pioneer Press (and now the Pioneer Press is doing
this too). So I am confused. Is it free speech anywhere the
people have money?
Gilmor: I think it was Mr. Rybak who said he was an absolutist.
If he was an absolutist he wouldn't be here agonizing over these
issues. They are hard to find. We had one visit our school a
few months ago and he is the Supreme Court reporter for the
Baltimore Sun. Lyle Deniston said that shooting the president
is free speech. I don't think my students will ever completely
recover from that statement but that is an absolutist.
Now, in the first place, Mr. Ryback and others here who are
the gatekeepers of our media do have one absolute right and
that is to refuse to accept advertising. They don't have to
take anything unless there is an anti-trust context of some
kind of breach of contract. Those would be very unusual circumstances.
The other thing, we are using the word censorship in a nontechnical
sense. Only the government can be a censor. It is not censorship
when any of our panelists decides not to run something. The
Supreme Court has said editing is for editors, and I believe
they would also say advertising decisions are for business managers.
Steve Gall: In our community of 20,000 I would have to
make very different decisions than this panel up here faces
and I don't envy any of them. There is a different attitude
and a different concept of what the daily newspaper is (in a
small community), much like this woman told us here, that Jim's
paper is her paper. I would venture to guess that if I were
to run anything that she presented (the sex ads), that I would
probably lose, in a day's time, 20% of my subscribers. That
is a huge chunk of money. It would be a very tough decision
because I do believe, like R.T. and Kris and Jim, (in access).
Schrader: I am pleased to see that the people I have
been upset with have been agonizing a little and that this has
not been cut and dried. I do see there has been some concern
so that is refreshing. I have known that this is not exactly
a First Amendment issue; these are business decisions. But I
think what I have learned is the difficulty (involved in making
these decisions).
Diaz: I am aware of Ms. Schrader's concern and we have
been having an ongoing dialogue in the organization. I want
to take off my hat to you for your tenacity on this subject.
I think it is an important issue. For the record, I have a 7th
grade son and a 5th grade daughter and a 5-year-old daughter
and I have to deal with the same issue when I look at the sports
page. And my wife has an opinion about it too, as you might
imagine.
In terms of a decision, it is within the realm of the business
part of the organization, as opposed to the journalism side.
But from an economics standpoint, it represents less than 1/20
of 1% of our revenue, so its not really putting us in or out
of business. Quite frankly, the collective time we spent on
it far outweighs the revenue that comes in, as well as reader
response to these particular issues. In the past we have also
taken some unpopular positions around domestic partners; we
allowed them to be part of engagements, but we made a switch
in our decision based upon a switch in the legal situation.
I think it is important to keep the issues out in front of the
community. I think it is important if you feel strongly about
it, to find ways to maybe eliminate these businesses in the
Twin Cities. On the other hand I guess where I end up is that
I need to have a conversation with my children and say, there
are some things out there that are not very nice. Hats off to
all of you who are advocating on improving imagery of women
and allowing all our daughters and sons tog row up in a better
place. But until those things go away or until the law changes,
we feel strongly about not pretending they don't exist.
Audience member: I want to draw attention to other ads,
in particular to ads that can be obnoxious, like anti-fur, anti-abortion
ads; they are very visually displeasing. I wanted to see what
is the reaction.
Bill Bradley: We have a policy on issue advertising,
which I think is what we are talking about here. The abortion
issue is at the top of the list right now. The Prairie Island
issue was at the top. The Northwest $635 million issue, if you
recall that was a couple of years ago, I think quite a few television
stations took a position on that.
CBS's position on issue advertising is that it is our obligation
to accept it. Issue advertising is a topic in which significant
segments of the population are at odds over a question. The
idea is that it quasi-borders on news and CBS feels that both
sides should have an opportunity to put whatever foot forward
they feel they deserve. If these ads get graphic, we have the
right not to accept those.
We did something almost a year ago based on information that
we received from our viewers . It had to do with graphic portrayals
of sensitive news. The station made a commitment to telling
the story without necessarily showing the blood pools and the
bullet holes. Because that's what the public wanted.
The public has not necessarily decided that that IS what they
want. The public decided that morally, if you asked them that
question, that is the only answer they can give you publicly.
Nobody watches that news more today than they did a year ago
when it changed. I think, in general, the public is far less
committed to these problems than the individuals that are in
this room.
Ellen Lambert: I am particularly torn on this issue because
I happen to be on the very lowest end of the totem pole at the
Star Tribune. I flop the papers on the doorsteps every morning
and I feel passionately about what I have to flop there. I am
ashamed. My concern is this will end this evening and this discussion
will not be continued. I am asking you personally, Mr. Diaz,
will you meet with us on a more ongoing basis?
Diaz: I think it is very consistent with our organization
that we want to improve and understand the issues in the community.
I can make a commitment to you tonight that we will try and
create forums so that people can express their positions.