Magazine
Publishers
of
America
Urges
"Editorial
Support"
for
PDFA
Ad
Campaign
10/23/98
At the annual meeting of the Magazine Publishers of America this week (10/19), Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey addressed the publishers of 1,200 of the nation's most popular titles. In his speech, McCaffrey "challenged" the group to take part in the Partnership for a Drug Free America's $775 million print ad campaign, both by running paid advertising and by providing "appropriate editorial support". The ads, bought at market rates by the Partnership using government (taxpayer) funds, will run over a concentrated period of time during 1999. After McCaffrey spoke, the board of directors of the MPA issued a press release announcing that they had "accepted the challenge," and that they "urge our member companies to participate by running (ads) and providing editorial support..." A spokesperson for the MPA told The Week Online, "On the editorial side, certainly there's no money involved. ONDCP initially approached the MPA, in fact it was Reader's Digest, Greg Coleman, their chairman, was approached by McCaffrey and they met and said 'this is probably something we can do.' So Greg went back to the members and met with them and it became a program." "This is worded very broadly. Obviously the MPA can't tell the editors what to do. This statement comes from the MPA board of directors. The board of directors is made up of the presidents and chairmen of the companies, and also a few editors. This is just a statement by them, and it's very general." But Michael Hoyt, Senior Editor for the Columbia Journalism Review, had a different take. Hoyt told The Week Online, "I don't think that the MPA should be urging members to provide editorial support for anything at all. It's simply not their role. And it doesn't matter how worthy they think the cause is. That's particularly true where there can be a perceived conflict of interest, such as urging that support in return for advertising dollars. "The Chrysler Corporation took some heat fairly recently for using its considerable advertising muscle on editors by telling them what stories to run or not to run. As a matter of fact, the Review ran a cover story on that. This is a different twist, however, in that it's the government, using taxpayers' money, and asking for support of a particular position." Tom Haines, Chair of the Partnership for Responsible Drug Information, told The Week Online, "This is a critical issue in that we are seeing the unification of the business end of the media community and the government for an advocacy campaign where only one point of view is coming across. If this were happening in any other country it would be denounced as a propaganda campaign."
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