What Ever Happened to the Great Wall?

I don't mean the one in China, of course; I mean the one that used to exist between advertising and editorial in newspapers.

I've been thinking about this for several weeks, ever since the news broke last month that long-time Hartford Courant columnist George Gombossy had been fired. The former consumer watchdog alleged that he was fired for writing a negative story about a major advertiser (he subsequently published the story himself, on his Connecticut Watchdog blog; the post is available here). The Courant's management called Mr. Gombossy's complaints those of a "disgruntled employee" and said that they were replacing Mr. Gombossy's position with one that would "go to more helpful news, and less gotcha news", and that Mr. Gombossy had not been interested in the new position (see Stephanie Clifford's New York Times article on the disagreement, here).

Which picture is the true one? Not having been a fly on the wall in the Courant meeting rooms, I can't say for sure. But at a time when every newspaper seems to be in a fight for financial survival, and when fewer and fewer newspapers are owned by individuals or families who care about being publishers more than about making a huge profit, I know which side I lean toward believing (the Courant, which began publishing before the Revolutionary War, was purchased by the Chicago-based Tribune Co. in 2000).

I don't want to minimize the problems that newspapers face. I love newspapers -- my first job out of college was as a newspaper reporter and photographer for a regional daily, and I still get a rush from printer's ink. I get upset every time I hear of a great paper folding.

But it's not as though advertisers haven't been pushing against that "Great Wall" since the wall first went up. No one likes hearing bad stuff about themselves, and advertisers are, not surprisingly, inclined to resent finding negative news articles in the same venue where they are paying for their presence. "For this I paid #XX?" they think. That's understandable.

It's also wrong.

As Gombossy states on his blog (full text of his post is here): "Advertisers don’t take out ads because they like the columnists or reporters. They take out ads based on a newspaper’s circulation, which is based on its credibility. The less credibility a newspaper has, the less readers it should have."