The NY Post “reports”:
According to Abbe Serphos, director of public relations for the Times, “the open rate for an ad of that size and type is $181,692.”
A spokesman for MoveOn.org confirmed to The Post that the liberal activist group had paid only $65,000 for the ad – a reduction of more than $116,000 from the stated rate.
A Post reporter who called the Times advertising department yesterday without identifying himself was quoted a price of $167,000 for a full-page black-and-white ad on a Monday.
Serphos declined to confirm the price and refused to offer any inkling for why the paper would give MoveOn.org such a discounted price.
Citing the shared liberal bent of the group and the Times, one Republican aide on Capitol Hill speculated that it was the “family discount.”
Allegedly a reporter, Jules Crittenden writes:
NYT Lies, People Will Die
… If they have their way, that is.
Wouldn’t you know it. Times gave a break to MoveOn.org to gratuitously and falsely insult Petraeus. It isn’t editorializing. It’s subsidizing propaganda. Maybe Petraeus should consider cutting the NYT’s Baghdad bureau off from any access to the U.S. military in Iraq. It’s not like they are doing much in the way of meaningful reporting there, anyway. Could lead to some unpleasant truths being aired, a little housecleaning. Theoretically what the ad department does and what the editorial page does are separate from what the news department does. Or doesn’t do.
Did those reportorial juices get flowing for Jules at any time during his tirade? Of course not! This is right-wing reporting. It would not occur to him to ask around and see what other organizations have paid for ads. It would not occur to him to think maybe retail prices are never actually paid. It would not occur to him to pick up the phone and, you know, call his buddies at Freedom’s Watch, or anywhere else, to determine whether or not the price seems out of line. Or to ask them what they paid. It would not occur to him to do any of the things that ACTUAL reporter Jake Tapper did:
New York Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis tells me that it’s Times policy to not “disclose the rate that any one advertiser pays for an ad. The rate that is charged for an ad will depend on a variety of factors including how frequently the advertiser advertises with us, the day of the week, is it color, is it black and white, what section it appears, all of those kinds of things.”
Mathis says the newspaper tries “to keep our advertising columns as open as possible” and “there are many instances when we’ve published opinion advertisements that run counter to the stance that we take on our own editorial pages.” As an example of how the Times is open to all points of view in advertisers, Mathis points out that on September 11, 2007, “we published a full-page advertisement from Freedom’sWatch.org, an organization whose view is opposite of MoveOn.org.”
Freedom’s Watch spokesman Matt David, however tells me the group was charged “significantly more” than MoveOn.org for its ad. The organization says it plans to run a response to the MoveOn.org NYT ad in the Times, “and we plan to demand the same ad rate they paid,” David says.
Note the folks at Freedom’s Watch refuse to disclose how much they paid. Will any of our brave truth detectors on the right try to figure out why?
There still is ZERO reporting and ZERO evidence that the NY Times did anything out of the ordinary, but the treason of the NY Times is now established “fact” on the right. And no one, and I repeat, NO ONE, will challenge them. And this is how it goes, day in, day out, as they fling things against the wall and hope they stick to their pre-existing opinions, and reify them for their own political purposes. Now the professional (and by professional, I mean the ones on fulltime wingnut welfare) wingnuts are involved. Brent Bozell was bitching about it on Fox last night. All that is left to happen now are columns by Jonah Goldberg, Malkin, and Hugh.
Two Questions:
1.) Has it always been like this? Does anyone ever stand up to these folks? And don’t people realize that in a week or so, should someone actually compares rates charged to different groups and find out nothing out of the ordinary actually happened (they may have received a big, out of the ordinary, and unusual rate cut, right now there is nothing to prove that these allegations are true, though), IT WILL NOT MATTER? By then, it is too late, and this will already be established truth. Like WMD in Iraq, bitches.
2.) How is it treason for a free press to allow groups of citizens to pay for something they want to advertise? And why is that wrong? And even if they DID give them a good deal, why the hell does that matter?
*** Update ***
*** Update #2 ***
Goldstein is also upping the ante, citing McCain/Feingold (something we actually still both agree on, and something that by itself disqualifies McCain from ever being President):
So the question once again is, was the discount offered by the NYT to MoveOn.org within the parameters of discounts given in the “ordinary course of business?
And will we ever know anyway, given that the Times will (as is their prerogative) comment only generally on their advertising pricing policies?
An interesting question, especially considering not one person in the fluffersphere has asked that or even attempted to investigate it. It was just decreed that the NY Times gave them some unheard of deal, and thus, is in bed with evil liberals. In fact, all the speculation to date has amounted to little more than ‘GEE- that sure seems like a big discount to me! There must be something wrong!’