Crush Liberalism

NYT gives big discount to MoveOn for “Gen. Betray Us” ad

From al-Reuters:

An ad criticizing the top U.S. general in Iraq raised charges on Thursday that The New York Times slashed its advertising rates for political reasons — an accusation denied by the paper.

The ad by liberal anti-war group moveon.org ran on Monday, the day of Gen. David Petraeus’s testimony to Congress about the war and how long U.S. forces will stay in Iraq.

Moveon.org confirmed it paid $65,000 for the full page ad headlined “General Petraeus or General Betray Us.”

The New York Post ran a story on Thursday asking why the basic rate of $181,692 for such an ad was discounted.

“Times Gives Lefties a Hefty Discount for ‘Betray Us’ Ad,” was the headline in the Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp..

Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis denied the rate charged indicated a political bias and said it was the paper’s policy not to disclose the rate paid by any advertiser.
…
Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor who blogs on media at buzzmachine.com, said the key question for the Times was could any other political or advocacy group get the same rate under the same circumstances.

“The quandary the Times gets stuck in is they don’t want to admit you can buy an ad for that rate, no matter who you are,” Jarvis said, noting that with print advertising revenues in decline newspapers generally did offer big discounts.

Excellent question, Prof. Jarvis. Rudy is, in fact, going to see if he can get an answer to that question for us:

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) said Thursday that he is asking The New York Times for the “same heavily discounted rate they gave MoveOn.org” for his campaign to run an ad in Friday’s paper.

Giuliani, calling MoveOn.org’s controversial “General Betray Us” ad “abominable,” said his campaign is asking the paper for a comparable rate for an ad to run following President Bush’s speech on Iraq. …

Big discounts for an anti-war moonbat group’s ad? Nope…no liberal media bias! We’ll see if Rudy shames the Old Gray Hag into giving him the same plum rate they gave to the ‘bats.

September 14, 2007 - Posted by crushliberalism | media bias, moonbats, Rudy