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Saturday, December 15, 2007

N.Y. Daily News: New York Times bashes Barry Bonds, then runs slugger’s memorabilia ad

Sweet…dying newspaper wars! Hopefully, even The New York Sporting Whip will get involved!

The New York Times’ policy on Barry Bonds: Don’t asterisk, don’t tell.

The Times paddled the steroid-tainted baseball slugger on its editorial page Friday, then peddled baseballs signed by the home-run king for $399 a pop in another section of the paper.

“Say it ain’t so, Roger, and Barry, and ...” read the editorial-page headline about the Mitchell Report. The piece demeaned Bonds and dozens of his major-league colleagues as part of “a win-at-all-costs drug culture.”

A few sections away, Times readers were offered a chance to purchase memorabilia celebrating Bonds’ juicy past: an autographed baseball, advertised in the Escapes section and available through the paper’s Web site.

“Barry Bonds has hit No. 756 and is the new home run champion!” read a Web site pitch for the signed ball. “Perfect for any baseball fan, executive or collector.”

Repoz Posted: December 15, 2007 at 01:17 PM | 7 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
Tags: business, giants, media, online

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1. TVerik Posted: December 15, 2007 at 02:20 PM (#2646413)

I don't know about the lead time in papers, but on TV the ad time is sold months in advance, absent special circumstances. There's a good chance in my opinion that Bonds' company placed this ad far before Mitchell came out.

That having been said, it's on the Times' editors that this happened - they should be able to see this bad-looking coincidence before the paper hits the streets. But there's long been a huge wall between advertising and news content - does any paper exercise direct editorial control of ads appearing in it beyond boilerplate standards?

The Daily News knows this all well, and it smacking around a rival paper the way politicians smack each other around in election season - through half-truths and innuendo. If you think that reading this column (or my response to it) represents you being "informed" about this issue, you're not even close.

2. Scoriano Flitcraft Posted: December 15, 2007 at 04:00 PM (#2646450)

"Barry Bonds is not the face of this era. He’s merely a face in the crowd."

3. Gambling Rent Czar Posted: December 15, 2007 at 05:24 PM (#2646512)

Yesterday ESPN had John Kerry on and he was bashing baseballs exclusive deal with Direct TV last spring.
the segment was sponsored by .. Direct TV.

4. TVerik Posted: December 15, 2007 at 05:31 PM (#2646518)

Many of us in "the game" don't even pay attention to these sponsorship conflicts of interest. I think this "wall" that I wrote about in #1 is a very good thing, by the way. I think it allowed the WWL to simultaneously put Barry Bonds' reality show on the air and assail him on the newsier programs.

5. manchestermets Posted: December 15, 2007 at 11:01 PM (#2646810)

Surely this demonstrates that there is no conflict of interest - the editorial has not been changed to suit the needs of the advertisers. I don't see what the issue is.

6. S. Ransom Posted: December 16, 2007 at 12:16 AM (#2646866)

Surely this demonstrates that there is no conflict of interest - the editorial has not been changed to suit the needs of the advertisers. I don't see what the issue is.

No kidding. It's nice to see that the wall between editorial and advertising is still up at the NYT. That's the first piece of good news for the Times in a long while.

7. dunnwrong Posted: December 18, 2007 at 02:13 AM (#2648401)

The funny thing is, the Daily News would never be guilty of this crass, embarassing offense. The Daily News would have enough sense to make sure that editorial was 100 percent behind whatever advertising was pushing.
There's barely a wall left between editorial and advertising at the fifth largest paper in America; the current editorial leadership has torn down most of the wall, and when what's left of the wall occasionally makes its battered presence known, the editors provide a stepladder to help reluctant reporters climb over, arses first.

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Saturday, December 15, 2007

N.Y. Daily News: New York Times bashes Barry Bonds, then runs slugger’s memorabilia ad

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