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BrauBlog

Please, tell me that's a Star Tribune layout mistake on page A5!

By David Brauer | Published Sun, Feb 22 2009 10:09 am

My Sunday Strib's page A5 is alarming, but not because of the journalism.

A bright red Target ad celebrating Dr. Suess runs across the middle of the page, neatly bisecting the photo and story on President Obama (who looks like he's peering down on the Cat in the Hat!).

The Pioneer Press version

I can only hope it's a layout mistake — one I've never seen before — and not the newest ultra-intrusive ad incursion. I'm seeking clarification. (Update: see below. Strib citizen blogger Andrew Eklund posts an image here and rips the paper on its own site here; good for him.)

Now, it's true MinnPost, among others, puts ads in the middle of its web stories, a practice I pretty much hate. But boy, in newsprint, it looks a thousand times worse.

Update: It's intentional: the same ad placement is in the Pioneer Press, too. [Hat tip: SK] St. Paul didn't screw up its layout as bad, since it put different stories above and below Thing 1 and Thing 2. I know baby's gotta eat, and maybe we'll all get used to it. But maybe the papers are testing their already testy print readership too much.

Media | Sun, Feb 22 2009 10:09 am | 12 Comments

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12 Comments: Hide/Show Comments

(#1) On February 22, 2009, steven gray says:

http://cxsteven.blogspot.com

A very sad day for print journalism.

(#2) On February 22, 2009, Steve Pease says:

Still not as bad, in my opinion, as advertorials. Which will, no doubt, adorn the front page below the fold at some point.

(#3) On February 22, 2009, Paul Scott says:

I'm less concerned about a print ad getting sandwiched inside a news story than PR getting so seamlessly packaged as to be reported as news. Thinking here of various questionably produced drug studies, for starters. Though I too found the big Cat in the Hat ad really bizarre. I would have read it and enjoyed it just fine underneath the story. Seems kind of greedy of the advertiser, to this reader anyway, and a Target shopping reader at that.

(#4) On February 22, 2009, Chris Olwell says:

Bright colorful ads that interrupt news content are the way of the future, according to newspaper designer Mario Garcia. I believe it's already a common practice in foreign papers.

Not that it's pretty....

(#5) On February 22, 2009, David Cater says:

"In the first book featuring the character (The Cat in the Hat, 1957), the Cat brings a cheerful, exotic and exuberant form of chaos to a household of two young children one rainy day while their mother leaves them unattended. Bringing with him two creatures appropriately named Thing One and Thing Two, the Cat performs all sorts of wacky tricks to amuse the children, with mixed results"

Now you tell me that the ad choice isn't intentionally symbolic; Obama is the cat,the two young children represent the Dems and Repubs,the mother leaving is Mmarket deregulation, the rainy day symbolizes the current economy, Thing One and Thing Two are clearly metaphors for the stimulus package and a trick to be named in the future.

Perhaps ad reps are studying up on <A href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hersey">Hersey</a>?

I'm sure that's it.

(#6) On February 22, 2009, John Jordan says:

The entire "mainstream media" ignored every major story about Obama last year (Rezko, Blago, etc.) and THIS is what is called a "sad day for journalism"? Fact-based, "unbiased" (at least the attempt at fair and unbiased) journalism died some time ago, this is just another last gasp at attempting to keep it alive.

(#7) On February 22, 2009, Ed Stych says:

One, you guys should be happy that the Strib sold an ad! Who cares where it's placed? It's going to pay a few bills.

Two, why no outrage of spending a third of the page's news hole on a photo of Obama (albeit an interesting photo)? It's not like we don't know what he looks like. (Tangent: Hard to imagine the Strib running a similar size photo of any of our past presidents.)

Three, the truth is that in a capitalistic culture, any media only exists as a vehicle for advertisers. (Did Pravda have "advertising" in the Cold War days? I suspect not ... or very little, but I don't know.) Less advertising, smaller news hole. Journalists exist to entertain and inform, creating readership that wants to buy or (in the case of the freebies) pick up a paper in hopes that the reader will respond to an ad. Yes, journalists do important work ... and it's generally fun work ... but it doesn't exist without advertisers or very wealthy people who want to do "give back" to the community. And, no, we don't need anymore government-supported news outlets.

(#8) On February 22, 2009, Author David Brauer says:

Ed - if you promise to pay the finders ten bucks, I'll bet we can find a Bush photo as big as third of a page in the Strib. C'mon, lets not inject partisanship into EVERYTHING. This ad placement, not the story subject, was the point.

As for ads, yes, it's good to sell them. But your audience has to see them, too. And if you make the ads too intrusive (or conversely, the story too difficult to read), they'll drop you and you won't be able to move your inventory at any price.

It's a fine line, and a tricky one, as the original story acknowledged. But it's not as black-and-white as you indicate.

(#9) On February 23, 2009, Eric Ferguson says:

http://www.ravensblog.net

"The entire "mainstream media" ignored every major story about Obama last year (Rezko, Blago, etc.)"

Other than the days and days and article after article on those stories, yes, they ignored them. Maybe they should resort to what conservative media do, and feed the tin-foil hat brigade.

Speaking of which, the real shame in the Sunday Pioneer Press was the decision of the editorial board to not only reprint Michael Stokes Paulsen's lie filled editorial in the Wall Street Journal last month on how the recount was screwed up, but in the editorial they quoted it and used it as an objective source of information that say the the election was chaotic. They couldn't even be bothered to print an opposing opinion or tell readers this was a conservative activist's opinion, not a legal analysis. I lost a lot of respect for the Pioneer Press today.

(#10) On February 23, 2009, Tom Knisely says:

At least they sold an ad.

(#11) On February 23, 2009, Mordecai Specktor says:

http://ajwnews.com

In our newspaper, we generally run ads on the bottom of the page.

So I was surprised to see the Target ad placed IN THE MIDDLE of a news story.

What's next? A faux news story about the foreclosure crisis in Whoville and Katroo?

(#12) On February 23, 2009, Joel Jensen says:

The placement caught my eye.
The content raised my ire.
But while one should never dismiss malice (political or other), I wonder if there might be a more simple explanation.

Given the current popularity of President Obama, the Strib probably charges a premium for placing an advertisement adjacent to his picture.

If magazine covers are any indication of what sells, the Star Trib might be just following the crowd.

Two old sayings come to mind:

Water runs uphill towards money.

Never impute to political conspiracy what greed (or rank stupidity)can more easily explain.

We'll have to watch and see.

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David Brauer authors Braublog and is MinnPost's local media reporter. He's covered media and politics as a writer and editor since 1983 for City Pages, the Southwest/Downtown Journal, KFAN and KSTP-AM, Mpls.St.Paul, Minnesota Monthly, Law & Politics, the Business Journal, KARE11 and national outlets. Follow him on Twitter. Email: dbrauer [at] minnpost [dot] com.

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