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In 1999 The Los Angeles Times created a stir when it was revealed that they printed a special section of their Sunday magazine touting the Staples Center arena and agreed to split the ad revenue with the Center.
Now comes current owner Sam Zell who is selling ads on the front page of the paper in order to generate more revenue but disguising the ads as news.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors aren’t very happy about this new wrinkle at the Times and they want the paper to stop the practice.
From Fishbowl LA
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors were moved by Thursday’s mock front page advertisement to send an open letter to LA Times‘ corporate chairman, Sam Zell. They wrote:
We urge the Times to stop selling its front pages to advertisers, especially in such an offensive and alarming manner. The cost of this distasteful practice to the people of Los Angeles County is far greater than any short-term gains by the Tribune Company.
LA Observed has posted a copy of the letter.
The advertisement, which was for Universal Studios’ new King Kong ride, wrapped around the LATExtra section and was designed to look like editorial copy – complete with fake articles. LA Times publisher Eddy Hartenstein defended the ad, saying:
The Universal Studios Hollywood ad wrapping Thursday’s LATExtra section met our advertising guidelines, including a large, red ‘advertisement’ notification on top of the page. Our readers understand the ad-supported economic model of our business, which allows us to provide the outstanding journalism they rely upon 24/7.
I didn’t see the ad but in my opinion this is giving readers one more excuse for dropping their subscriptions. The front page of a paper should be for news and ads should be relegated to the inside pages and clearly marked as such.
This is somewhat similar to news broadcasts running video news releases as if they were real news and not clearly identifying them as p.r. puff pieces by the companies that supplied them.
Yes the news business is suffering but the willingness of Sam Zell to turn his product into a giant ad with some news sprinkled in is surely not the way to save the paper.
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About the author
Don Irvine is Chairman of Accuracy in Media. He is active on Facebook and Twitter. You can follow him @donirvine to read his latest thoughts.
