THE

by Russ Baker

SOME MAJOR ADVERTISERS STEP UP THE PRESSURE ON MAGAZINES TO ALTER THEIR CONTENT, WILL EDITORS BEND?

In an effort to avoid potential conflicts, s there any doubt that advertisers reason to hope that other advertisers it is required that Chrysler Corporation mumble and sometimes roar about won’t ask for the same privilege. be alerted in advance of any and all edi- reporting that can hurt them? You will have thirty or forty adver- torial content that encompasses sexual, I That the auto giants don’t like tisers checking through the pages. political, social issues or any editorial pieces that, say point to auto safety They will send notes to publishers. that might be construed as provocative problems? Or that Big Tobacco hates I don’t see how any good citizen or offensive. Each and every issue that to see its glamorous, cheerful ads doesn’t rise to this occasion and say carries Chrysler advertising requires a juxtaposed with articles mentioning this development is un-American Written summary outlining major their best customers’ grim way of and a threat to freedom.” theme/articles appearing in upcoming death? When advertisers disapprove Hyperbole? Maybe not. Just about issues. These summaries are to be for- of an editorial climate, they can- any editor will tell you: the ad/edit Warded to PentaCorn prior to closing in and sometimes do take a hike. chemistry is changing for the worse. order to give Ch ysler ample time to re- But for Chrysler to push beyond Corporations and their ad agencies view and reschedule if desired. . . As ac- its parochial economic interests by have clearly turned up the heat on edi- knowledgement of this letter we ask that demanding summaries of upcoming tors and publishers, and some maga- You or a representative from the publi- articles while implicitly asking edi- zines are capitulating, unwilling to risk cation sign below and return to us no tors to think twice about running even a single ad. This makes it tougher later than February 15. “sexual, political, social issues”- for those who do fight to maintain the -from a letter sent by Chrysler’s crosses a sharply defined line. “This ad-edit wall and put the interests of ad agency PentaCorn, a division is new,“ says Milton Glaser, the New their readers first. Consider: of BBDO North America, to at York magazine co-founder and cele- + A major advertiser recently ap- least fifty magazines brated designer. “It will have a dev- proached all three newsweeklies- astating effect on the idea of a free Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News-and - press and of free inquiry.” told them it would be closely moni- Russ Baker is a free-lance writer who Glaser is among those in the press toring editorial content. So says a lives in New York. His last piece for CJR, who are vocally urging editors and high newsweekly executive who in the March/April issue, was about publishers to resist. “If Chrysler was given the warning (but who the Food Lion v. ABC trial. achieves this,” he says, “there is no would not name the advertiser). For 4 + A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR the next quarter, the advertiser Kurt Andersen, the former New York ing. “IBM is a stickler-they don’t warned the magazines’ publishing magazine editor-whose 1996 firing like any kind of controversial arti- sides, it would keep track of how the by parent company K-III was widely cles,” says Robyn Mathews, formerly company’s industry was portrayed perceived to be a result of stories of Entertainment Weekly and now in news columns. At the end of that that angered associates of K-III’s Time2 chief of makeup. She negotiates period, the advertiser would select founder, Henry R. Kravisnonethe- with advertisers about placement, one-and only one-of the magazines less says that he always kept adver- making sure that their products are and award all of its newsweekly ad- tisers’ sensibilities in mind when not put near material that is directly vertising to it. editing the magazine. “Because I critical. AT&T, Mathews says, is an- + An auto manufacturer-not worked closely and happily with the other company that prefers a soft c& Chrysler-decided recently to play publisher at Nezu York, I was aware mate. She says she often has to tell art director at a major glossy, and the who the big advertisers were,” he advertisers, “We’re a news magazine. magazine played along. After the says. “My antennae were turned on, I try to get them to be realistic.” magazine scheduled a photo spread and I read copy thinking, ‘Is this go- Still, the auto companies appar- that would feature more bare skin ing to cause Calvin Klein or ently lead the pack in complaining than usual, it engaged in aback-and- Bergdorf big problems?’ m about content. And the automakers are forth negotiation with that adver- National Review put a reverse spin so powerful-the Big Tluee pumped tiser over exactly how much skin on the early-warning-for-advertisers $3.6 billion into U.S. advertising last would be shown. CJR’s source says discussion recently, as The Washing- year-that most major magazines the feature had nothing to do with ton Post revealed, when its advertis- have sales offices in Detroit. the advertiser’s product. ing director sent an advance copy of After The New Yorker, in its issue + Kimberly-Clark makes Huggies a piece about utilities deregulation of June 12, 1995, ran a Talk of the diapers and advertises them in a num- to an energy supplier mentioned in Town piece that quoted some violent, ber of magazines, including Child, the story, as a way of luring it into misogynist rap and rock lyrics- American Baby, Parenting, Parents, buying space. along with illustrative four-letter Baby Talk, and Sesame Street Parents. And Chrysler is hardly the only words-opposite a Mercury ad, Ford Kimberly-Clark demands-in writ- company that is aggressive about its Motor Company withdrew from ‘the ing in its ad insertion orders-that editorial environment. Manufacturers magazine, reportedly for six months. these ads be placed only “adjacent of packaged goods, from toothpaste The author, Ken Auletta, learned to black and white happy baby edi- to toilet paper, aggressively declare about it only this year. “I actually torial,” which would definitely not their love for plain-vanilla. Colgate- admire The Nezu Yorker for not telling include stories about, say, Sudden Palmolive, for example, won’t allow me about it,” he says. Yet afterwards, Infant Death Syndrome or Down’s ads in a “media context” containing according to The Wall Street Journal, syndrome. “Sometimes we have to “offensive” sexual content or mate- the magazine quietly adopted a sys- create editorial that is satisfactory to rial it deems “antisocial or in bad tem of warning about fifty compa- them,” a top editor says. That, of taste”-which it leaves undefined in nies on a “sensitive advertiser list” course, means something else is its policy statement sent to maga- whenever potentially offensive arti- likely lost, and the mix of the maga- zines. In the statement, the company cles are scheduled. zine is altered. says that it “charges its advertising + Former Cosmo Girl Helen Gurley agencies and their media buying Brown disclosed to News&y that a services with the responsibility of Detroit auto company representative pre-screening any questionable me- t is the Chrysler case, though, (the paper didn’t say which com- dia content or context.” that has made the drums beat, pany) asked for-and received-an Procter & Gamble, the second- partly because of Chrysler’s heft advance copy of the table of contents largest advertising spender last year I and partly because the revelation for her bon voyage issue, then ($1.5 billion), has a reputation as about the automaker’s practice came threatened to pull a whole series of being very touchy. Two publishing neatly packaged with a crystalline ads unless the representative was executives told Gloria Steinem, for example of just what that practice permitted to see an article titled her book Moving Beyond Words, that can do to a magazine. “How to Be Very Good in Bed.” Re- the company doesn’t want its ads In the advertising jungle Chrysler sult? “A senior editor and the cli- near anything about “gun control, is an 800-pound gorilla-the na- ent’s ad agency pulled a few things abortion, the occult, cults, or the dis- tion’s fourth-largest advertiser and from the piece” a dispirited Brown paragement of religion.” Even non- fifth-largest magazine advertiser (it recalled, “but enough was left” to sensational and sober pieces dealing spent some $270 million at more salvage the article. with sex and drugs are no-go. than 100 magazines last year, behind Cosmo is hardly the only magazine Kmart and Revlon are among those General Motors, Philip Morris, Proc- that has bowed to the new winds. that editors list as the most demand- ter & Gamble, and Ford). Where it Squeeze 29. I leads, other advertisers may be How many magazines will reject tempted to follow. ‘I WAS AWARE Chrysler’s new road map? Unclear. The automaker’s letter was mailed WHO THE ,BIG Lalli says he has not found any to magazines in January 1996, but publisher or editor who signed and &d not come to light until G. Bruce ADVERTISERS returned the Chrysler letter as de- Knecht of The Wall Street ]ournnl un- WERE. I READ manded. “I’ve talked to a lot of pub earthed it this April in the aftermath lishers,” he says, “and I don’t know of an incident at Esquire. The Jooumal COPY THINKING, of any who will bow to it. The great reported that Esquire had planned a IS ,THIS GOING weight of opinion among publishers sixteen-page ,layout for a 20,000- and editors is that this is a road we word fiction piece by accomplished TO CAUSE can’t go down.” author David Leavitt. Already in CALVIN KLEIN Yet Mike Abe&h, Chrysler’s man- page proofs and scheduled for the ager of consumer media relations, April ‘97 issue, it was to be one of BIG PROBLEMS?’ claims that “Every single one has the longest short stories Esquire had been signed.” Aberlich says that in ever run, and it had a gay theme and Kurt Andersen, some cases, individual magazines some raw language. But publisher former editor of agreed; in others a parent company Valerie Salembier, the ]oournaZ re- New York magazine signed for all its publications. ported, met with then editor-in-chief CJR did turn up several maga- Edward Kosner and other editors gets harder to assert editorial inde- zines, mostly in jam-packed demo- and voiced her concerns: she would pendence. graphic niches, whose executives have to notify Chrysler about the After the article about Esquire in concede they have no problem with story and she expected that when she the Iburnul, the American Society of the Chrysler letter. One is Maxim, a did so Chrysler would pull its ads. Magazine Editors-the top cops of new book aimed at the young-men- The automaker had bought four pages, magazine standards, with 867 mem- with-bucks market put out by the the 1ooumaZ noted-just enough to bers from 370 magazines-issued a British-based Dennis Publishing. n We’re enable the troubled magazine to show statement expressing “deep concern” going to play ball,” says Maxim’s its first year-to-year ad-page improve- over the trend to give “advertisers sales manager, Jamie looper. The ment since the previous September. advance notice about upcoming sto- startup, which launched earlier this ries.” Some advertisers, ASME said, year, signed and returned the Chrys- “may mistake an early warning as ler letter. “We’re complying. We defi- an open invitation to pressure the nitely have to.” osner then killed the piece, publisher to alter, or even kill, the At R0.v a two-and-a-half-year-old maintaining he had editorial rea- article in question. We believe pub- magazine backed largely by Freedom sons for doing so. Will Blythe, lishers should-and will-refuse to Communications Inc. (owners of The K the magazine’s literary editor, bow to such pressure. Furthermore, we Orange Counfy Regisfer) and aimed at promptly quit. “I simply can’t stom- believe editors should-and will- a similar audience, publisher Drew ach the David Leavitt story being follow ASME’s explicit principle of Massey says he remembers a Chrys- pulled,” he said in his letter of res- editorial independence, which at its ler letter, can’t remember signing it, ignation. “That act signals a terrible core states: ‘The chief editor of any but would have no problem provid- narrowing of the field available to magazine must have final authority ing advance notice. “We do provide strong, adventuresome, risk-taking over the editorial content, words, PentaCorn with a courtesy call, but work, fiction and nonfiction alike. I and pictures that appear in the pub- we absolutely never change an arti- know that editorial and advertising lication.’ fl cle.” Chrysler, alerted to P.O.V’s Au- staffs have battled-sometimes affa- On July 24, after meeting with the gust “Vice” issue, decided to stay in. bly other times savagely-for years ASME board, the marketing com- Massey argues that the real issue is to define and protect their respective mittee of the Magazine Publishers of not about edgy magazines like turfs. But events of the last few America-which has 200 member P0.V; but about larger and tamer weeks signal that the balance is out companies that print more than 800 magazines that feel constrained by Of whack now-that, in effect, we’re magazines-gathered to discuss this advertisers from being adventurous. taking marching orders (albeit, indi- issue, and agreed to work against Hachette Filipacchi, French-owned rectly) from advertisers.” prior review of story lists or summa- publisher of twenty-nine U.S. titles, The Chrysler letter’s public expo- ries by advertisers. “The magazine from Elle to George, offered Chrys- sure is a rough reminder that some- industry is united in this,” says ler’s plan for a safe editorial envi- times the biggest problems are the ASME’s president, Frank Lalli, man- ronment partial support. Says John most cliched: as financial concerns aging editor of Money. “There is no Fennell, chief operating officer: “We become increasingly paramount it debate within the industry” did respond to the letter, saying we 4 -3 A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR were aware of their concern about Formerly pure public television and controversial material and that we ‘I KNOW THAT public radio now run almost-a& would continue-as we have in the EDITORIAL AND Schools bombard children with ce: past-to monitor it very closely and real COmmerCialS in return for the to make sure that their advertising ADVERTMNG monitors on which the ads appear. did not appear near controversial STAFFS HAVE Parks blossom with yogurt- and things. However, we refused to turn sneaker-sponsored events. over or show or discuss the editorial BATTLED FOR Meanwhile, a growing number of direction of articles with them.” YEARS. BUT publications compete for ad dollars, not just against each other but against EVENTS SIGNAL the rest of the media, including new t has long been a widely accepted THAT THE media. Those ads are bought by ever- practice in the magazine industry larger companies and placed by a to provide “heads-ups”-warnings BALANCE IS OUT shrinking number of merger-minded I to advertisers about copy that ad agencies. might embarrass them-say, to the OF WHACK’ Are magazines in a position where friendly skies folks about a sched- they cannot afford to alienate any Former Esquire literary editor uled article on an Everglades plane advertiser? No, as a group, magazines Will Blythe, crash, or to Johnnie Walker about a have done very well lately, thank in his resignation letter feature on the death of a hard-drink- you. With only minor dips, ad pages ing rock star In some instances, ad- out of one issue into the next issue and total advertising dollars have vertisers are simply moved as far as about ten times a year. We haven’t grown impressively for a number of possible from the potentially discon- stopped dealing with any maga- years. General-interest magazines certing material. In others, they are zine.” He compares placing an ad to sold $5.3 billion worth of advertising offered a chance to opt out of the is- buying a house: “You decide the in 1987. By 1996 that figure had sue altogether, ideally to be resched- neighborhood you want to be in.” more than doubled, to $11.2 billion. uled for a later edition. That interesting metaphor, owning Prosperity can enhance indepen- In the 198Os, Japanese car makers valuable real estate, leads to other dence. The magazines least suscep- got bent out of shape about news ar- metaphors-advertisers as editorial tible to advertiser pressures are ticles they saw as Japan-bashing NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) try- often the most ad-laden books. Un- says Business Weeks editor-in-chief, ing to keep out anybody or anything der its new editor-inchief, David Stephen B. Shepard, a past ASME they don’t want around. Granger, the anemic Esquire seems to president. Anything about closed As for the current contretemps, be getting a lift, but GQ had sup- markets or the trade imbalance might Aberlich says it’s nothing new, that planted it in circulation and in the se- be seen as requiring a polite switch Chrysler has been requesting ad- rious-article business, earning many to the next issue. vance notice since 1993. “We sent an National Magazine Awards. This is Chrysler, some magazine people initial letter to magazines asking in part because it first used adver- argue, is simply formalizing this them to ,notify us of upcoming con- tiser-safe service pieces and celebrity longstanding advertiser policy of troversial stuff-graphic sex, graphic profiles to build ad pages, then had getting magazine executives to con- violence, glorification of drug use.” more space to experiment and take sider their special sensitivities while But what about the updated and es- liSkS. assembling each issue. But Chrys- pecially chilling language in the Catherine Viscardi Johnston, sen- ler’s letter clearly went beyond that. 1996 letter, the one asking to look ior vice president for group sales PentaCorn’s president and c.e.o., over editors’ shoulders at future ar- and marketing at GQ’s parent com- David Martin, was surprisingly blunt ticles, particularly polifical, social ma- pany, the financially flush Conde when he explained to The Wall Street terial and editorial that migizt be Nast, says that in her career as a Journal the automaker’s rationale: construed as provocative? Aberlich de- publisher she rarely was asked to re- “Our whole contention is that when clines to discuss it, bristling, “We schedule an ad-perhaps once a you are looking at a product that didn’t give you that letter.” year. Meddling has not been a prob- costs $22,000, you want the product lem, she says: “Never was a page to be surrounded by positive things. lost, or an account lost. Never, never There’s nothing positive about an ar- ow did we get to the point did an advertiser try to have a story ticle about child pornography.” where a sophisticated advertiser changed or eliminated.” Chrysler spokesman Aberlich in- dared send such a letter? In At the other extreme, Maxim, sists the brouhaha is no big deal: “Of II these corporate-friendly times, which signed the Chrysler letter, the thousands of magazine ads we’ve the sweep and powers of advertisers does face grueling ad-buck competi- placed in a year, we’ve moved an ad are frenetically expanded everywhere. tion. The number of new magazine

1Q7 29. Squeeze startups in 1997 may well exceed do much damage. “Boycotts have no 1,000, says Samir Husni, the Univer- ‘MORE discernible impact on sales. Usually, sity of Mississippi journalism professor ADVERTISERS the public’s awareness is so quickly who tracks launches. And Maxim’s dissipated that it has no impact at demographic-LX- to 34-yearold males WHO WEREN’T all,” says Elliot Mincberg, vice-presi- -is jam-packed with titles.. AWARE OF THIS dent and general counsel of People This is not to say that prosperity For the American Way, a liberal or- and virtue go hand in hand. Witness SYSTEM HAVE ganization that tracks the impact of Conde Nast’s ad-fat Architectural GONE TO pressure groups. Why, then, would Digest, where editor-in-chief Paige advertisers bother setting guidelines Rense freely admits that only adver- HEBR “AGENCIES that satisfy these groups at all? tisers are mentioned in picture cap- AND SAiD, “They’re trying to minimize their risk tions. The range of standards among to zero,” says an incredulous Wti magazines is wide. Hm, WHY NOT Blythe, Esquire’s former literary editor And that range can be confusing. Yet not every advertiser pines for “Some advertisers don’t understand ME TOO?’ the bland old days. The hotter the on a fundamental level the differ- product, it seems, the cooler the ence between magazines that have a G. Bruce Knecht of heads. The “vice” peddlers (booze & serious set of rules and codes and The Wall Street Journal cigarettes), along with some apparel serious ambitions, and those that and consumer electronics products, don’t,” says Kurt Andersen. “The television,” 82 percent replied that it actually like being surrounded by same guy at Chrysler is buying ads ought to be “individual viewers edgy editorial copy-unless their in YM and The New Yorker..” themselves, by deciding what they own product is zapped. Party on! If it is up to editors to draw the will and will not watch.” Almost no Even Chrysler’s sensitivities ap- line, they will have to buck the in- one-just 9 percent-thought adver- pear to be selective. Maxim’s premier dustry’s impulse to draw them even tisers should be able to shape con- issue featured six women chatting deeper into their magazines’ business tent by granting or withholding provocatively about their sex lives, issues. Hachette Filipacchi’s U.S. presi- sponsorship. Even PentaCorn admit- plus several photos of women in dent and c.e.o., David Pecker, 1s* one ted to the Journal that its own focus scanty come-hither attire, but Chrys- who would lower the traditional ad- groups show that Chrysler owners ler had no grievances. edit wall. “I actually know editors who are not bothered by Chrysler ads met with advertisers and lived to tell near controversial articles. about it,” he said in a recent speecl~ So what’s eating these folks? Par- he real danger here is not cen- Some editors at Hachette-and other tially, it may be a cultural phenome- sorship by advertisers. It is self- news organizations--share in increased non. Ever since magazines began to censorship by editors. On one pmfits at their magazines. Thus, to of- attract mass audiences and subsidize level, self-censorship results in fend an advertiser it might be argued, T subscription rates with advertising, omissions, small and large, that de- would be like volunteering for a pay many magazines have chased read- light big advertisers. cut. So be it; intrepid editors must be ers-just as networks chase viewers Cigarettes are a clear and familiar prepared to take that. now-with ever more salacious fare. example. The tobacco companies’ But corporate executives have often hefty advertising in many a maga- remained among the most conserva- zine seems in inverse proportion to ronically in fretting over public tive of Americans. Nowhere is this the publication’s willingness to criti- sensibilities, advertisers may not truer than in heartland locations like cize it. Over at the American Cancer be catering to their consumers at Chrysler’s Detroit or Procter & Society media director Susan Islam I all. In a recent study of public Gamble’s Cincinnati. says that women’s magazines tend opinion regarding television-which Ad executives say one factor in the to cover some concerns adequately is even more dogged by content con- mix is sponsors’ fear of activist groups, but not lung cancer: “Many more tX%rsies than magazines437 percent which campaign against graphic women die of lung cancer, yet there of respondents said it is appropriate or gay or other kinds of editorial have hardly been any articles on it.” for network programs to deal with material perceived as “anti-family” To her credit, Glamour’s editor- sensitive issues and social problems. Boycotts like the current Southern inchief, Ruth Whitney is one who Crhe poll was done for ABC, NBC, Baptist campaign against Disney for has run tobacco stories. She says that and CBS by the Roper Starch World- “anti-family values” may be on the her magazine, which carries a lot of wide market research firm.) Asked rise, precisely because advertisers do tobacco advertising, publishes the re- who should “have the most to say take them seriously. This, despite a sults of every major smoking study about what people see and hear on lack of evidence that such boycotts But Whitney concedes they are mostly 4 + A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR short pieces. “Part of the problem the organization has not yet had to police. Special advertising sections with cigarettes was-we did do fea- do that. In addition, ASME occasion- are visible. Killed or altered articles tures, but there’s nobody in this ally asks the organization that offi- are not. And unless it surfaces, as in country who doesn’t know cigarettes cially counts magazine ad pages, the the Esquire case, self-censorship is in- kill.” Still, everybody also knows that Publishers Information Bureau, not visible. getting slimmer requires exercise to count advertising sections that One well-known editor, who and eating right, which has not pre- break the rules as ad pages-a tactic asks not to be identified, thinks the vented women’s magazines from that ASME president Lalli says tends problem will eventually go away running that story in endless permu- to get publishers’ attention. “It’s a self-regulating thing,” he says tations. Tobacco is in the news, and Not everyone in the industry thinks “At some point, the negative public: magazines have the unique job of ASME throws “much of a shadow. ity to the advertisers will cause them deepening and humanizing such “ASME can’t bite the hand that to back off.” stories. feeds them,” says John Master-ton of Specific editorial omissions are Media Industry Newsletter, which cov- Of course, there is nothing par- easier to measure than how a maga- ers the magazine business. During ticularly automatic about that. It zine’s world view is altered when Robert Sam Anson’s brief tenure as takes an outspoken journalistic com- advertisers’ preferences and sensi- editor of Los Angeles magazine, the munity to generate heat. And such tivities seep into the editing. When business side committed to a fifteen- attention could backfire. The Journal’s editors act like publishers, and vice page supplement, to be written by Knecht told the audience of public ra- versa, the reader is out the door. the editorial side and called “The dio’s On the Media that his reporting Can ASME, appreciated among Mercedes Golf Special.” Mercedes might actually have aggravated the editors for its intentions, fire up the didn’t promise to take any ads, but problem: “One of the negative effects troops? The organization has been it was hoped that the car-maker is that more advertisers who weren’t effective on another front-against would think kindly of the magazine aware of this system have gone to abuses of special advertising sec- for future issues. The section would their advertising agencies and said tions, when advertisements try to appear as editorial, listed as such in ‘Hey, why not me too! This sour& adapt the look and feel of editorial the table of contents. Anson warned like a pretty good deal!’ rr matter. ASME has distributed a set the business side that, in his opinion, Except, of course, that it really of guidelines about just what con- the section would contravene ASME isn’t. In the long run everybody in- stitutes such abuse. guidelines, since it was in effect an volved is diminished when editors To enforce those guidelines, ASME ad masquerading as edit. A senior feel advertisers’ breath on their executive director Marlene Kahan executive told him not to worry- necks. Hovering there, advertisers says the organization sends a couple that at the most they’d get a “slap help create content that eventually of letters each month to violators. on the wrist.” The section did not bores the customers they seek Then “Most magazines say they will com- run in the end, Anson says, because the editors of those magazines tend ply,” she reports. “If anybody is really of “deadline production problems.” to join the ranks of the unemployed. egregiously violating the guidelines That’s just one of the many reasons on a consistent basis, we’d probably that editors simply cannot bend to sit down and have a meeting with he Chrysler model, however-with the new pressure. They have to them.” ASME can ban a magazine its demand for early warnings, draw the line-subtly or overtly from participating in the National and its insistence on playing quietly or loudly, in meetings and in Magazine Awards, but Kahan says T editor-is tougher for ASME to private, and in their own minds.

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