Posted on 01/12/2014 4:21:07 AM PST by Red in Blue PA
Magazines offer advertisers far more than just print pages these days -- whether that's native ad units or co-sponsored parties -- but sway over editorial staffing remains, by and large, strictly forbidden.
A possible exception to this rule is gun publications, where it's not unheard of, according to The New York Times, for advertisers to exert outsized influence on some of these magazines.
"When writers stray from the party line promoting an absolutist view of an unfettered right to bear arms, their publications -- often under pressure from advertisers -- excommunicate them," Times reporter Ravi Somaiya wrote in a story published Sunday.
Dick Metcalf, former contributing editor at InterMedia Outdoor's Guns & Ammo magazine, claims to be one of the excommunicated. The Times interviewed Mr. Metcalf, who said that Guns & Ammo, under pressure from two major gun manufacturers, dismissed him after he wrote an op-ed calling for some gun control.
As gun magazines reportedly bend over backwards for their advertisers, the consumer demand for them grows, with four of the five titles in InterMedia Outdoor's shooting group recording increases in paid and verified circulation through the first half of 2013, the most recent reporting period available from the Alliance for Audited Media, which tracks magazine and newspaper circulation.
(Excerpt) Read more at adage.com ...
They need to repeal some of this gun control we have now. Stupid laws for suppressors and sbr’s, not to mention the individual state laws.
If you believe that I've got a bridge to sell you. And the Metcalf episode isn't that surprising. When you write articles supporting the agenda of a very powerful political group whose sole objective is to ban the only product your advertisers sell then you can expect to get your pink slip by the end of the week. Which is exactly what happened.
They intentionally missed the point and misrepresented events, as is usual for the far left. This wasn’t “Big Guns” exerting pressure comparable to Big Tobacco or some other industry the far left chose to demonize. It was readers threatening to cancel their subscriptions, and in many cases actually cancelling. The left has no standards, and they don’t understand those of us who do. The original FR thread on the terrible editorial shows us cancelling our subscriptions, not Ruger, Remington, and Glock applying pressure - if the gun manufacturers had been, we would have cheered them (and there would have been nothing wrong with a private, for-profit company protecting our God-given human right to keep and bear arms).
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3086986/posts
In other words -- as usual -- the left lied.
If you get a leftist publication, and it is dated, you would be wise to check your calendar.
EXACTLY!
“-”When writers stray from the party line promoting an absolutist view of an unfettered right to bear arms, their publications — often under pressure from advertisers — excommunicate them,” Times reporter Ravi Somaiya wrote in a story published Sunday. -”
It is GOOD to see that there are other publications that use the same silencing techniques as the Old Washrag and Wash. Compost
The NYT? That is the Eye of Sauron. That is the place from whence the evil flows.
OH I get it, you mean the gun publications. Yeah, fun to do a little turnabout and watch the leftists squeal.
Agreed. We win when we fight back.
***under pressure from two major gun manufacturers,***
Now back in the olden days of gun magazines, it was standard policy NEVER to criticize your advertiser’s products.
As a result, good quality guns from Europe that were not advertised here caught hell.
The ONLY magazine I ever saw that criticized various American made guns was the old GUN TESTS, and PISTOLERO magazines of which I am glad to say I still have quite a few of them in my bookcase.
The word “criticize” is mild The writers of GUN TESTS racked some USA trash guns, from major manufacturers, over the coals!
If you believe that I've got a bridge to sell you. And the Metcalf episode isn't that surprising.........
One of the points in the article, made early on, was that gun magazines are the exception to that rule.
Man, from the title I thought you could now by a 30 round AR magazine at local news stand.
Hmmmmm......
And my point was I don't believe this "rule" is iron clad at all and that advertisers exercise control over the editorial policies and staff of lots of different niche magazines in addition to gun magazines. Gun magazines aren't some isolated "exception". For example, I watched MS exercise lots of control over computer magazines during the 90s and much of the first decade 2000s and there are many other examples.
Oh, I read your post and came away with you believing the exact opposite. my mistake.
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