News-Free Zone

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Mon Feb 24, 2003 5:56 pm

U.S. News & World Report said last week that if war breaks out, it will create a new war-free zone in which buyers can be assured their ads are next to less-traumatic fare, including stories on health, science, business and culture. The section, which will be called 2nd Front, will have an inside cover replete with the U.S. News logo, display photography and a table of contents. (Mediaweek)***Perish the thought that a Target ad might appear next to a story about the Siege of Baghdad.***[[ February 24, 2003: Message edited by: blanp ]

SusanV · **Posted:** Mon Feb 24, 2003 6:28 pm

Whoa. This is news to me!(In fairness, I'm not in the office today, so perhaps there's an email I haven't seen yet.)Do you folks really think that is such a bad idea? I'm not big on second-guessing such decisions, but perhaps the thinking is that it might help avoid even more ad losses.

rumymommy · **Joined:** Tue Aug 06, 2002 12:01 am **Posts:** 138

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by SusanV:

Do you folks really think that is such a bad idea?<hr></blockquote>I've heard of cases where certain advertisers have in their ad contracts that they won't be placed next to certain types of stories. Tobacco companies had something about cancer stories, airlines about air safety and whatnot. But let's say this idea catches on in a big way and the disease-of-the-week-free space becomes a regular.I can often take things to their extreme, but what happens when all that space runs out and advertisers act reluctant to purchase "regular" space? I worry some bean counters will see a great chance to make a lot of cash in exchange for rounded reporting. Somehow I don't think this will go away with war. There's always doom and gloom. It makes news. "Happy ad space" is usually found in the features sections, anyway.

Hawkeye · **Posted:** Mon Feb 24, 2003 10:53 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by blanp:
The section, which will be called 2nd Front, will have an inside cover replete with the U.S. News logo, display photography and a table of contents. <hr></blockquote>So, if they're going to go through all that trouble, creating a second magazine within the magazine, why don't they just produce another magazine? A magazine without any news value (lest the moneybags be offended by the news). A magazine full of cotton candy features and news about celebrities. But I guess if they did that, they'd be publishing "People."

SusanV · **Posted:** Tue Feb 25, 2003 2:25 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Hawkeye:
So, if they're going to go through all that trouble, creating a second magazine within the magazine, why don't they just produce another magazine? A magazine without any news value (lest the moneybags be offended by the news). A magazine full of cotton candy features and news about celebrities. But I guess if they did that, they'd be publishing "People."<hr></blockquote>And that is something you will never see in our pages.Here's the deal. We wouldn't be producing a second magazine but just changing how things are organized. War coverage would in effect become a special section in the front of the book. The so-called second front would comprise everything else we usually cover--business, finance, science, health, technology, and so forth. As a rule I do not publicly debate the merits of such things, but I will say this much: We have been working at 10-percent-reduced salaries for more than a year now with no restoration in sight. If by this plan we keep ads we might otherwise lose then I am all for it. Aside to 4J--Here, there is no such thing as ad "space run[ning] out." We add pages or sometimes (and rarely) kill a story as needed.

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