The Editorial Wall

Chris Kardish
ck230305@ohio.edu

During my time in various capacities at The Post I have come to understand the divide between advertising and editorial. At The Post the divide probably has more to do with total ignorance of, and indifference toward, the business end of journalism than a principled rejection of any tampering in news content from the advertising wing. When I was running The Summer Post, our advertising man handed me page proofs with ads and I filled those pages with news. That was it.

I personally have always been highly critical of advertising in any shape and form, writing it off as a necessary evil at best and a vile distraction that creates artificial need at worst (I think it was Kafka who said “I do not read advertisements—I would spend all my time wanting things”). But I’m a bit more cynical and, well, crazy than many of my colleagues (probably a good thing they’re not all so impulsive and directed by any arising passion).

But despite my deeply held convictions, I do see the need for at least some cooperation between advertising and editorial. I can be pragmatic and drown my beliefs when necessary. Try as I might to ignore the unpleasant truth that journalism is a business and newspapermen are shelling out a product, my grand illusions often cave to good sense and necessity.

As one source said in the article “Taking Care of Business,” which appeared in the American Journalism Review, "It's worse than idealistic to think that any other kind of company could succeed in a business and not have the parts of the business talk to each other. The basic principle still stands: Advertising should not affect coverage." This editor-turned-marketing man has the right idea.

Communication is never a bad thing, and in a business environment it’s downright essential. I don’t see a lot of harm in simply letting advertising know what you’ve got coming down the pipeline, cooperating and including representatives from the department in some meetings. You just don’t let them have any say in what you’re covering or how you cover it. You drive the content, but you let them know what that content is so they can plan accordingly. If they have questions about the angle of a story, you should answer them completely and honestly. If they ask you to tone something down or change that angle, you tell them 'hell no.'

I also don’t see a huge danger in some cooperation between entertainment/travel sections and the advertising department. They’re already essentially promotional anyway and you’re not putting your hard-hitting, corruption-exposing stories in these sections. These are your money-making sections in large part and you should milk them for all their worth. Once again though, if advertising tells you not to include some nasty little truth about some high-end luggage manufacturer or something, you tell them ‘too bad because the story won’t be filtered by marketers.’