Ads on the front page

Ditto.

 

The first paper I worked for full time had one across the bottom of the sports page almost every day, an auto dealer. This was 1979. It was a fact of life -- inconvenient and ugly from a design standpoint but no other problems than that.

As long as there are no other strings attached, I do not see it as an issue of integrity, not even on A-1. I see it as an issue of desperation maybe, and an issue of the newsroom feeling territorial and being pissy about losing that fight. The guy who edited the first paper is one of the toughest men I've ever met, and the guy who edits the Freep is the best editor I've ever met, and I've seen a couple otherwise gutless editors get all whiny about ads on section fronts, probably entirely for show, when there were far greater problems of broken integrity going on in their newsrooms that they either ignored or condoned. So, really, I do not think it's a matter of right or wrong, it's a matter of being realistic and choosing to worry about things that truly threaten a newspaper's integrity rather than those that don't.

 

The Sun in San Berdoo had the 1 x 6 ad across the bottom about four days a week when I was there two years ago. A pain in the ass when you're also designing the Daily Bulletin front that doesn't have that ad.

 

Pure gold, sir.

 

I'm just waiting for the day we have a 3c x 12" floating right smack dab in the middle of our section front.

5 inches from the top, 5 inches from the bottom, 1 1/2 columns clear on each side.

It will happen.

 

I wonder what they'd call that kind of ad.

A centerpiece?

Ugh.

 

We actually had them for a while, but for the last couple months they stopped.

Maybe that's why we're continuing to lay off our staff.

 

Ad/Marketing guy had a term for these, too. He called them "Islands Ads."
I threw up a little bit in my mouth.

 

I've never liked the idea and I never will.

To me, it's a simple matter of sacrificing your integrity for a buck. Play this out a little more and what's next, the bottom quarter of the page in ads . . . half a page . . . a wrap-around full of ads?

 

Newspapers have been putting ads on the front page for more than 150 years. Look at any front page from the late 19th century; column one was all ads.

Integrity is compromised by errors and fabrications and things like that, not by 6x1.5 ads across the bottom of a section front.

If you work at a newspaper, those ads are paying your bills. Not your newspaper's bills; your bills.

 

FileNotFound has nailed it. The Sullivan Tire ad that goes across the bottom of the Herald's back page is the reason I made it to the indebted middle class.
The only danger in this practice is if the ads jump out at the reader instead of the heads and copy. Then readers might suspect the ads are more important than the copy, and that's not good for circulation.

 

I understand that ideally, people accept that the ads are separate from the news coverage and, therefore, are not subject to the objectivity of the newspaper.

But I still throw up a little bit everytime I see stuff like "GO RED WINGS!" or whatever, especially when the ad is on the front page like the one in the Free Press example cited. I'd be upset if that ad was placed right next to my story, because that now makes me look like a homer as well.