6 Comments

Interesting. Thanks for posting!

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I'm a very small one-person outlet that recently just took his first ad from a local government. It feels a bit strange, because I primarily write about local government. I know that I could use some guidance on what policies I need in place to assure it doesn't affect what I choose to report on. Today's post is very helpful.

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Sean, Thanks so much for this, and for reading.

I think the policies you want to have are the same as for all advertisers: they have no influence on editorial, aren't told in advance what you're publishing, appropriate disclosures in news stories if readers might otherwise eventually look askance etc. Government in this sense shouldn't be any different.

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BLECH on Column, Dick. I think you need to turn a more skeptical eye toward it, as I have. Basically, it's looking out for its own capitalist bottom line, as I see it. Some of its proffered help to newspapers may be real, as part of that, but it's also still looking out for its own capitalist bottom line. https://beloblogging.blogspot.com/2022/06/is-texas-press-association-shooting.html

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Current law in California requires public notices to be published in print. Online publication doesn't count. For years, any change to this requirement has been opposed by both legacy publishers and ethnic media, which has particularly relied on this income stream.

When the law changes, I suspect it will allow public notices on government sites, not just on news sites.

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I appreciate your comments and your work. However, advertising usually has more defined requirements. The New York Times is a first choice for a strategy to reach “thought leaders.” Executives, government officials, legal and education experts, etc. (that’s why the creative is usually quite different from what the same advertisers would be running in more main stream outlets.

And, media planning can be quite effortfful and expensive. Buying the in bulk is more efficient. If you’d like to talk more about how this works, happy to chat.

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