The Broken Wall.

• Author: FLEETWOOD, BLAKE
• Position: Newspaper coverage of its advertisers

How newspapers are selling their credibility to advertisers

YEARS AGO WHILE ON THE METROPOLITAN staff of The New York Times, I came up with a nifty idea for an article. Tiffany, the Fifth Avenue jewelry store, was getting a $4.5 million tax break under a state program designed to keep businesses from moving jobs out of town. Where could Tiffany move to: Ho-Ho-Kus, Hackensack, Des Moines?

The editors loved the idea, and it involved a large number of other companies, but as my finished piece moved up the chain of command, things began to get funny. I suddenly realized that Tiffany was one of the largest and oldest advertisers at the Times, always in the favored position: upper right, page three.

The story ran on the front page in a rewritten form. But the obvious lead was rewritten somewhat dully as follows: "A New York State Plan begun in 1968 to help small manufacturers create jobs in impoverished urban areas has evolved into a program awarding a broad range of corporations tens of millions of dollars a year in tax relief." The key and engaging point about Tiffany, the quintessential example, was moved to the 19th paragraph.

Last winter a team of six reporters published the results of a three-month investigation of the local phone company, Bell Atlantic, for the New York Daily News. They found that phone service was ten times worse in poor areas than in wealthy neighborhoods, that the phone company routinely misses 500,000 appointments a year, and that it overbills customers. The editors loved the story, and the first part of a promoted series ran on the front page. But then the angry head of Bell Atlantic, Ivan Seidenberg, got on the phone to Mort Zuckerman, publisher of the News. Seidenberg sits on the Board of Directors at Boston Properties, Zuckerman's parent company.

Bell Atlantic is one of the biggest advertisers at the News, which is not exactly making wads of money these days. Millions of advertising dollars were at stake. Parts of the story were faxed to Bell Atlantic for comment and, unbeknownst to the News, the phone company was more than happy to pre-release the damning information (with a favorable twist) to the New York Post, a rival tabloid. The Post then ran what's known as a "spoiler"--a quickie watered-down expose--the Saturday before the Sunday News investigation. It featured a sidebar jab at the News piece: "Tomorrow's News Today," featuring the News logo.

After an all-out fax, phone, and letter assault, the second story ran on page six and was considerably milder in tone. Editor Art Browne says the pressure--and an offer by Bell Atlantic to buy more advertising--had no effect. But the folks at Bell Atlantic are glad they "turned the story around" The follow-ups were never published. The advertising pressure and the "spoiler" worked.

The Bad Old Days

The New York Times, The Daily News, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, and other prestige big city papers have a long history of publishing fearless muckraking articles. They set the industry standard. But if even these large, rich papers can sometimes feel the pressure of advertisers, imagine the influences ordinary papers throughout the country are subjected to. It's not that papers haven't always felt commercial interests breathing down their necks. In the 1950s, woman's page and fashion writers were "required to come up every month with articles whose total column inches reflected the relative advertising strength of every story," according to Nan Robertson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at The New York Times. When she first started at the Times, she remembers in her book The Girls in the Balcony, "There was hell to pay [from the advertising director] every time an advertiser was not adequately represented in the `news' columns of the woman's page. I had the good fortune to be assigned to some of the quality emporia such as Bergdorf Goodman, Bonwit Teller and Henri Bendel, and it was easy to write about them. The woman's department was the Times's dirty little secret."

That obvious pandering policy--selling the soft sections--began to change in the '60s as Ralph Nader and his idealistic band of "raiders" opened Americans' eyes to the power of corporate interests. Journalists began to feel some shame about peddling the industry line, even in the soft sections, and grew bolder about reporting on corporate evildoers. The Washington Post's Watergate investigation, led by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, further encouraged journalists to feel that no institution was above reproach.

Yet at the same time, newspapers began to feel the pangs of a long-term decline in readership and profits that would ultimately undermine their newfound courage. In the '60s nearly 85 percent of the adult American public read a newspaper daily; now that figure is below 55 percent. Newspapers are losing readers in droves. Moreover, there is much more competition for advertising dollars. Merchants are looking to reach highly targeted and segmented audiences. Sofa dealers want to be in a decorating...