Check this out. The phrase “yeah right” comes to mind.
Statement by Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org Political Action Executive Director, Resolving the New York Times Ad Rate Issue
WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — In the Public Editor
column of today’s New York Times, the Times’ vice president admits that,
without the knowledge or consent of MoveOn.org Political Action, the Times
“made a mistake” in charging MoveOn its standby rate of $65,000 for the
advertisement run on Monday September 10. According to the Public Editor,
the Times’ vice president admitted that the company’s advertising
representative “failed to make it clear that for that rate the Times could
not guarantee the Monday placement but left MoveOn.org with the
understanding that the ad would run then.” According to the Public Editor,
“the group should have paid $142,083.”
Now that the Times has revealed this mistake for the first time, and
while we believe that the $142,083 figure is above the market rate paid by
most organizations, out of an abundance of caution we have decided to pay
that rate for this ad. We will therefore wire the $77,083 difference to the
Times tomorrow (Monday, September 24, 2007).
We call on Mayor Giuliani, who received exactly the same ad deal for
the same price, to pay the corrected fee also.
The Public Editor’s column makes crystal clear that at no time did
MoveOn have any reason to believe that it was receiving from the Times
anything other than the normal and usual charge for the advertisement. And
there is no evidence of any kind that the error in quoting of rates was in
any way based on the content of the advertisement or the identity of its
sponsor. Of course, MoveOn believed that it was engaged in an arms length
negotiation regarding advertising rates with the Times and assumed that it
was being quoted advertising prices consistent with the Times’ usual and
normal charge.
MoveOn continues, of course, to stand by the content of the
advertisement and to urge citizens and their elected representatives in the
Congress to focus on the continued dishonesty of the Bush Administration
and the American blood and treasure being lost in a war for which the
Administration has no exit strategy. Certainly that issue is more worthy of
the attention of the electorate and the media than the mistake of an
advertising representative or the wording of an advertisement.
SOURCE MoveOn.org Political Action
Interesting. My take is that Macys and Dreamworks and all their other regular big advertisers have been dialing the number.
“we believe that the $142,083 figure is above the market rate paid by most organizations”
That’s what Roger is saying — who knows how many other anti-Bush organizations have gotten special discounted prices for their political advertisements? Someone should do a search of political ads in the Times over the past six years (at least) and audit the rates paid for each of them.