Writing in the Guardian recently, Ciar Byrne described how the new editor of the Daily Telegraph "wants to attract more young readers to the paper while maintaining its core values". Why young readers? Because, Byrne notes, "advertisers prefer to give their business to newspapers which appeal to affluent young professionals".
The "quality press" depends on corporate advertising for 75 per cent of its revenues. Could this dependency perhaps influence editors and journalists in some way? As the media analyst James Twitchell, author of Adcult USA, explains: "You name it: the appearance of ads throughout the pages, the 'jump' or continuation of a story from page to page, the rise of sectionalisation (as with news, cartoons, sports, financial, living, real estate), common page size, halftone images, process engraving, the use of black-and-white photography, then colour, sweepstakes, and finally discounted subscriptions were all forced on publishers by advertisers hoping to find target audiences." The first effect of dependency on advertising, suggests Robert McChesney, author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy, is that a paper comes to accept the status quo as "essentially proper and benevolent".
Sometimes a newspaper wants to please business, sometimes it merely reflects a pleased business. The functioning of the right-wing US press as "literal press agents and cheerleaders" for Bush over Iraq, according to Edward Herman, professor of finance at the University of Pennsylvania, "reflects the fact that the corporate community is very pleased with the Bush administration, which has been brazenly aggressive in providing business tax breaks, resource giveaways, reductions in environmental controls, cutbacks in the welfare state, and impediments to labour organisation".
In 2001, Peter Preston, a former editor of the Guardian, explained that one reason why the Times, among others, had been campaigning so insistently for decisive action on the ground in Afghanistan before winter set in was because it "wants a resolution that will set advertising flowing again and slash the coverage costs". Behind the Times's rhetoric about demonstrating a righteous "will to win", Preston wrote, "it inevitably has the full price of 'waiting till next spring' somewhere in mind".
While editors fretted over cash flows in comfortable offices, aid agencies begged the US to delay bombing so that aid convoys could reach the 7.5 million Afghans facing starvation. The editors got what they wanted. By December, as the B-52s went into action, it was reported that 100 refugees were dying every day in Afghanistan's Maslakh refugee camp alone. But it wasn't reported very often.
When the MediaLens website discussed the impact of advertising on media performance, the Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger, wrote to a reader: "Haven't read it yet. If this is the one that suggests that the Guardian suppresses stories about climate change because of commercial pressures, it's rubbish."
We suggested nothing of the sort. But imagine if the Guardian really did decide that climate change was a serious, perhaps terminal, threat to human life; that urgent action was needed to reduce consumption of fossil fuels and other natural resources. Imagine if Guardian editorials denoun-ced the "ecocidal" values of corporate consumerism, exposing the pernicious impact of endless press and TV adverts.
And imagine if, as part of this campaign, Adbusters, the anti-consumerist organisation, was asked to print its "subvertisements" alongside regular ads as a balance to unchallenged corporate propaganda. Journalists, after all, insist that they preserve scrupulous balance in commentary and news reporting - and yet nobody finds anything strange in the corporate monopoly on advertising.
The Adbusters founder, Kalle Lasn, told us that when he attempted to place his expertly produced TV spots lampooning regular adverts, "they laughed me out of the building. Station managers said: 'Why should I run ads that hurt my business?'"
Companies such as BNFL have money to fund a 32-page supplement in the New Statesman (which is 40 per cent dependent on advertising and sponsorship). But you won't be reading 32-page supplements by the anti-war movement or radical green groups any time soon. The idea that money should buy influence in news reporting or commentary is deemed outrageous. But when it comes to advertising in our "free press" - business is business.
The writers are editors of MediaLens (www.medialens.org)
