|
« What Recession? |
Main
| Media Self-Absorption Watch »
May 3, 2008
Virtual Recession Sparks NY Times Ad Sales Halt
ScrappleFace has the scoop:
With the nation on the verge of "a near-virtual likely recession", The New York Times stopped selling advertising today in an effort to help readers conserve “what little money they have left.”
"We realized we were sending mixed messages,” said Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., “Our reporters and columnists say ‘Economic disaster is upon us’, but our advertisers say ‘Spend, buy, borrow’.”
“Our integrity,” he said, “demands that either we stop reporting on predictions of a very-probable, possibly-imminent, almost-certain recession-like economy, or we stop encouraging people to buy stuff, take on debt and live it up as if the world were not practically about to end.”
The moratorium on advertising sales will continue at least through January 2009, Mr. Sulzberger said, when he anticipates a positive change in what he called “the chief economic indicator,” a housing benchmark determined by which political party controls the White House.
Posted by edelfenbein at May 3, 2008 11:03 AM
|
