A horrible day on all fronts ...

Fredrick channeling his inner Rickey Henderson?

 

I'm in the minority here, but frankly, this stuff has never bothered me in the least. You sell ads. Sell as many as you can and put them where they'll bring the most revenue. We'll fill the section around the ads based on our news judgment. We know going in that there may be some uncomfortable juxtapositions. Airline mishap next to a JetBlue ad? It happens. Tomorrow's another day.

At the S-S, we had an unofficial "no preps on the massage parlor ads page" rule. But there were days when preps demanded the most space, and the most space in the section was the massage parlor ads page (because those ad stacks only ran a couple of inches high). What are you going to do?

If, as most of us suspect, the S-S's "no gun ads" claim is BS, then how are you going to deftly avoid issues like this, seeing as there are Parkland shooting stories basically EVERY DAY in that paper?

 

I like your post. However, you sleep with a Commie. ... Call it a push, for now.

I'd stack the gun ads with the massage ads, though. One-stop shopping for the critics and God-squadders, etc. ...

 

I remember one of my former co-workers who's a bit older than me saying he came very close to putting a story on the dangers on smoking on an A section page with a cigarette ad in the days when newspapers accepted tobacco advertising. Caught himself at the last minute and moved the story to another page.

Both newspapers and tobacco are sort of in the same predicament now -- although cigarette makers will have a future as long as people in many overseas markets keep smoking like chimneys.

 

The old (pre-Hearst) San Francisco Chronicle pulled it off once, running, in the Sunday Datebook section (aka the Pink section) a feature on Christian singer Amy Grant on the same page as the adult movies/theatre ads.

 

One of my remaining friends at the Sun Sentinel (not many still work there) says that if nothing else, this episode has forced the new editor to acknowledge the print side for the first time in her more than two months on the job. He swears she has yet to offer a consoling word to any of the desk people who are facing layoffs and that she's also quite well-versed in corporate drivel -- one of her favorite expressions is, "Teamwork makes the dream work."

 

That's sad to hear. Especially since she was a copy editor in her younger days.

 

In light of how the gun issue's increasing profile -- particularly in the backyard of the Parkland shooting -- you've got to know you can't put a gun ad on the front page for the foreseeable future. Never should have been set to go at all. This thing was almost predictable.

 

Opportunists, all of them.

 

And yet Fredrick gets criticized for blasting people like this ... Teamwork makes the dream work. My gawd. Have some self respect suits! Don't talk in suit-speak. We're going down the tubes. We know it. Let's go down with the ship like a proud captain not some corporate tool!

 

Nothing new here. The Star-Ledger ran ads for XXX movies in the sports section beginning in the 70s. Any child could see them.

The Star Ledger has a long proud history as birdcage liner.

 

Self-awareness is a valuable, and underrated, thing.