Chrysler Agrees Not to Drive Over the Line
The president of the Magazine Publishers of America says he is pleased that Chrysler Corp. apparently will honor a new magazine industry policy designed to keep editorial content away from advertisers before publication.
“This does not mean that advertising and sales people [at magazines] will not talk with advertisers about upcoming editorial features,” MPA President Donald D. Kummerfeld said. “But we feel it’s inappropriate to submit text in advance.”
Chrysler, one of the largest magazine advertisers in the country, recently told publishers that it no longer would require periodicals that accept its ads to notify the company before they run controversial material. Chrysler’s decision ended a practice that had generated criticism from editors, who viewed it as a not-so-subtle form of censorship.
The decision came after the MPA and the American Society of Magazine Editors issued the joint statement of policy late last month. The statement, seeking to protect the editorial integrity of magazines, urged magazines not to submit editorial content for prior review.
“We are confident,” it said, “that editors and publishers can inform advertisers about a publication’s editorial environment or direction without engaging in practices that may at the very least create the appearance of censorship and ultimately could undermine editorial independence.”
Chrysler spokesman Mike Aberlich said this week that the auto maker is satisfied that magazine publishers know its guidelines, which call for its ads to be clear of text that includes graphic sex or violence or that glorifies drug use. He also said that Chrysler has shifted its ads from one issue to another of a magazine only 12 times since January 1996.
Although Chrysler’s announcement appears to signal a thawing of the frost that set in over a divisive issue in advertiser / editor relations, one important trade publication, Advertising Age, has argued that publishers and editors have yet to seal a gap “through which advertiser demands will continue to flow.”
In a recent editorial, Ad Age added that by agreeing to inform advertisers about “editorial environment or direction” but not showing actual articles before publication, the editors and publishers have drawn a blurry line in the sand.
Guaranteed Boost: Yahoo! Internet Life is taking a big leap, two years after Ziff-Davis Inc. launched the Net-hip magazine. Drawing lots of subscribers who sign up via the mag’s Web site (https://www.yil.com), the Manhattan-based monthly plans to raise its circulation guarantee by 100,000 copies, to 400,000 total, beginning with the February issue.
Story of Success: Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the brothers from Queens who built and run Miramax Films (“sex, lies and videotape”, “The English Patient”), are putting their success story on paper. “The Art of Miramax: The Inside Story” will be published in the spring or summer by Hyperion’s Miramax Books imprint, which specializes in screenplays.
* Paul D. Colford is a columnist for Newsday. His e-mail address is paul.colford@newsday.com. His column is published Thursdays.
