MEDIA ALERT
Advertising Makes A Mockery Of Press Freedom
October 19, 2001
One of the great 'Flat Earth' ideas of our time is the notion
that deep dependence on corporate advertising does not compromise the ability
of our corporate press to report honestly and accurately. Contrary to
common belief, most money is not made on a newspaper's cover price.
Instead advertising constitutes fully 75% of the average broadsheet's total
revenue.
In a recent Guardian article, Roy Greenslade reports the
dramatic and, for the press, devastating collapse in advertising revenues
following the terrorist attacks of September 11. Consider the significance of
what Greenslade has to say:
"...We can now see the full effects of the
British press price war after eight years. General Rupert Murdoch's great
crusade to reverse the downward circulations of his papers after the last
recession by selling them at drastically low prices now threatens the future
of the whole industry. Advertising income has fallen away and, despite
Murdoch's optimism, it is difficult to forecast when the trend will reverse.
That wouldn't matter as much if his pricing strategy had not ensured that
papers have been sold too cheaply for too long.
The net result of his
war is that many rival papers, with the notable exception of Associated's
Mail titles, have been scared to raise cover prices since 1993. It has meant
that most owners, including Murdoch of course, have been disproportionately
reliant on ad revenue." (Roy Greenslade, 'Oh no, sales are up...' the
Guardian, 15.10.01)
Plausible deniability is one thing, but are we really
to believe that these newspapers - "disproportionately reliant on ad revenue"
as they are - would +voluntarily+ risk such disastrous falls in revenue by
launching devastating and sustained attacks on corporate advertisers,
corporate products, corporate activities and corporate philosophies, of the
kind that are regularly seen in the non-ad-dependent radical
press?
Greenslade, like almost all mainstream commentators, fails to asks
some very simple questions about the media-advertising relationship: How
likely is it that an ad-dependent press will reveal and consistently
emphasise the most destructive aspects of the corporate system, made up of
the advertisers on which it depends? How likely is it that such a press will
emphasise the adverse health effects associated with products massively
promoted in its pages, and on which it depends? What chance that it will
seriously analyse the role of corporations in bypassing democracy by seeking
to influence domestic and foreign policy? What chance that it will reveal the
truth of the symbiotic relationship between corporations, state foreign
policy, Third World dictators and profits?
These questions are absurd
to editors and journalists, who dismiss the pressure of advertisers out of
hand.
Media Lens asked Roger Alton, editor of the Observer, if it would
ever occur to him that running certain kinds of stories might lose him
major advertising revenue. Alton answered:
" No, if you had a story
about ghastly goings on at Ford you wouldn't +dream+ of not running
it."
Alton saw no problem and instead applauded the
system:
"Commercial considerations are very, very important - any
responsible journalist should take account of those. So it's not that all
advertisers are bad: in a commercial world, we depend on advertisers as well
as revenue to keep going."
Alton seemed to miss the point, so we
turned to Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian: Would he ever consider the
effect on advertising incomes before printing something? Rusbridger
said:
"Um, no, I don't think so. No, I think... I wouldn't have thought
so. Sometimes you publish stories and advertisers pick their ball up in a
sulk and go away. It does happen, and if you're a decent editor you don't
take any notice; and eventually the advertisers either need you more than
you need them, or... I don't think it's a sort of huge issue in the
mainstream press, at the moment, in a thriving economy. I think it's much
more of an issue for magazines that are very, very heavily dependent on a
narrow range of advertisers, so I think the fashion press works like
that."
We also asked one of Channel 4's newsreaders, Jon Snow, who
said:
"Well how do you propose to fund them?... You want to produce a
bland, boring, under-financed bloody media, which has no adverts, and
which prattles on about events that occurred 30 years ago."
An
international memo put out by tobacco company Philip Morris reveals
the reality beyond these arguments:
"The media like the money they
make from our advertisements and they are an ally that we can and should
exploit... We should make a concerted effort in our principal markets to
influence the media to write articles or editorials positive to the industry
position on the various aspects of the smoking controversy."
In 1993
Mercedes Benz told 30 different magazines that it would withdraw
its advertisements from any issue that contained articles critical of
Mercedes, German products or Germany.
In a letter to over 100
magazines, Chrysler corporation advised in 1997: "In an effort to avoid
potential conflicts, it is required that Chrysler corporation be alerted in
advance of any and all editorial content that encompasses sexual, political,
social issues or any editorial content that could be construed as provocative
or offensive."
The Economist reports how media projects "unsuitable for
corporate sponsorship tend to die on the vine," adding that media "have
learned to be sympathetic to the most delicate sympathies of
corporations".
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR - www.fair.org) reports that in a 2000 Pew
Centre for the People & the Press poll of 287 US reporters, editors and
news executives, about one-third of respondents, said that news that would
"hurt the financial interests" of the media organization or an advertiser
goes unreported. Forty-one percent said they themselves have avoided stories,
or softened their tone, to benefit their media company's interests. When a
2000 Time magazine series on environmental campaigners, sponsored by Ford
Motor Company, failed to mention anti-auto campaigners, Time's international
editor admitted that mentioning them would be inappropriate because, after
all, "we don't run airline ads next to stories about airline
crashes".
Proctor & Gamble, the world's biggest advertiser,
explicitly prohibited programmes "which could in any way further the concept
of business as cold, ruthless, and lacking all sentiment or spiritual
motivation".
In a rare, dissenting article, Richard Ingrams of the
Observer indicated the hidden connection between media silence on mobile
phone health risks and profits:
"When the newspapers are obviously
doing so well out of all this advertising, it is not so surprising that they
tend not to give much coverage to the growing evidence that mobile phones are
not only anti-social but extremely dangerous." (Richard Ingrams, the
Observer, 19.12.99)
Advertising is only one of a range of powerful
constraints on free reporting - media entities are themselves profit-seeking
corporations, owned by giant parent companies (arms manufacturers, nuclear
power construction companies, and the like), and by wealthy moguls with all
kinds of fingers in all kinds of business pies. They are vulnerable to attack
by powerful corporate front groups and flak machines, and deeply dependent
for breaking news on business-friendly state news sources.
Together,
these pressures combine to create the media servility that we see all around
us. Corporate criminality +is+ exposed, globalisation +is+ challenged, but in
such a piecemeal, disembodied and feeble way that it constitutes a massive
distortion of reality; one which prevents the public gaining an awareness of
the true scale and destructiveness of corporate power.
The 'free
press' is a lynchpin of the corporate system. Its role is to maintain the
vital illusion of neutrality and objectivity, while promoting an
establishment agenda, obscuring the charade that is
business-controlled domestic politics, and covering for state-corporate
responsibility for massive human rights abuses abroad. We cannot possibly
receive an honest picture of the world from the corporate press - not of the
problems that face us, their urgency, their cause nor, most importantly,
their solutions.
SUGGESTED ACTION
Contact The Guardian and ask one or more of the following questions:
* How likely is it that an ad-dependent press, including The
Guardian, will reveal and consistently emphasise the most destructive aspects of
the corporate system, made up of the advertisers on which it depends?
* How likely is it that such a press will seriously analyse the role of
corporations in bypassing democracy by seeking to influence domestic
and foreign policy?
* How likely is it that such a press will reveal the truth of the
symbiotic relationship between corporations, state foreign policy,
Third World dictators and profits?
Roy Greenslade, columnist: Roy.Greenslade@guardian.co.uk
Alan Rusbridger, editor: Alan.Rusbridger@guardian.co.uk
The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. In writing letters to journalists, we strongly urge readers to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.
Copy your letters to editor@medialens.org
Feel free to respond to Media Lens alerts (alerts@medialens.org).
Visit the Media Lens website: http://www.MediaLens.org