On Wednesday, about 30,000 of our readers got a DVD along with their morning newspaper.
It was an advertisement, paid for and designated to certain ZIP codes in The Plain Dealer’s circulation area, by a group named Citizens United. The title was, “HYPE: The Obama Effect.” Part of the message on the DVD jacket referred to Barack Obama’s “real agenda for America,” and said, “Any American who wants to learn what the media doesn’t want them to know – and refuses to report – needs to watch this film.”
No prizes for guessing which side of the political aisle Citizens United is on.
Some readers who got it objected strenuously to the fact that it was besmirching their driveways, and wanted to know why the paper would deliver such a thing.
Some who didn’t get it heard about it and asked how to obtain a copy.
And many (it went to a bit less than 10 percent of our readers) didn’t even know about it.
But the decision to accept the ad is interesting and worth discussion here.
It’s important to reiterate that the disc was an advertisement and thus an advertising decision – not one made in the newsroom. It was not subject to the normal editing and fact-checking of the newsroom operation. Citizens United paid the newspaper to deliver its message, just like any other advertising piece, political or otherwise.
That doesn’t mean that an advertiser can put anything he or she wants into the newspaper, of course. Every advertisement is subject to review, and the newspaper reserves the right to reject without explanation. It does mean that the newspaper very purposefully builds a wall between advertising and the news department. The advertising department doesn’t have any say over what stories the news folks write. And the news department is not consulted on what advertising to accept or reject.
In this case, President and Publisher Terry Egger reviewed the advertisement and decided to accept it. That does not necessarily mean he agreed with everything in it: “We are not advocating it, but we are not suppressing it, either,” he said.
“I watched the whole thing, and in my judgment, the messages in the DVD were consistent with the campaign message that is already out there,” he said. “If you are pro-Obama, you’re not going to like it at all. If you’re pro-McCain, you’ll find things that you will agree with.”
That’s the crux of it. While it was presented in a manipulative way, the content was in concert with the things that Obama’s opponents – in both the Democratic primary and the general election – have been saying all along.
The main thrust is that Obama is a liberal, with liberal ideas of how to address the country’s problems. What American doesn’t know that? The video states that he is inexperienced in foreign affairs, which has been a constant theme of his opponents from both political parties. His relationships with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers and Tony Rezko are criticized.
What it didn’t include, mercifully, was a repetition of the Web-borne tripe about Obama’s religion, his birth certificate and secret alliances with terrorists.
The divisiveness of the current campaign, and advancing technology, have given newspapers plenty of knotty decisions to make.
Last month, newspapers across the country delivered millions of copies of an ultra-violent, anti-Muslim DVD called “Obsession” as advertising inserts. Tomorrow, seven newspapers in Kentucky and Indiana will be distributed in bags with paid political messages from the National Rifle Association.
Many newspapers, including the New York Times, agreed to distribute “Obsession.” The Plain Dealer rejected it. Some newspapers rejected the NRA bag buy because of its timing. That campaign was limited to Kentucky and Indiana, so we had no decision to make on it.
In the case of the “Hype” DVD, Citizens United says it approached five newspapers – the Cincinnati Enquirer, Columbus Dispatch, Palm Beach Post and Las Vegas Review-Journal and The Plain Dealer – and all accepted it. It played in movie theaters in seven cities, including Cleveland, although theaters in Palm Beach and Tampa declined it.
As technology advances, the decisions on what to accept or reject will become more frequent – and more complicated.
I’ve got a suggestion for people who don’t think we should have distributed this DVD: Throw it away. Or watch it. Your choice. But I don’t think the newspaper was wrong to accept the contract to give you that choice.
