We're searching for better ways to connect advertisers, readers

The way things are trending, newspapers may eventually replace their nameplates with the words, "Your Ad Here."

OK, that's a joke. But, at a time of increased economic pressure, newspapers are easing many traditional restrictions on the placement of advertising content. Advertisers are also under pressure and are pushing for greater impact from the dollars they spend with all media. In recent days, The Wall Street Journal announced that it will sell space on its front page. The New York Times has said it will take ads on its business-news section front, and the Chicago Tribune is reportedly considering section-front ads, as well.

These moves follow other changes in which newspapers are accepting ads in a variety of nontraditional shapes with names such as bookends, goalposts and stair steps. The names fairly well describe how the ads are configured around news content.

While some of these changes are disturbing to journalists and probably to many readers, newspapers still are far more careful than most media in the limits they place on advertising. Trends in other media are even more dramatic than what's happening with papers.

For example, one-half million copies of the current issue of Shop Etc. magazine have a cover that is an ad paid for by retailer Target, according to The Wall Street Journal. Even that is tame compared with some of what is happening in broadcast and online, where ad content is sometimes deliberately presented as if it were editorial content.

So, what are news consumers (we still think of you affectionately as readers) to make of all of this? I say three things:

• The challenges to the business model of all advertising-supported media are real and represent a genuine threat to the future of public-service journalism.

• Owners are beginning to recognize that they can't solve the problem by cutting their investment in content to the point that they drive away readers, viewers and listeners. They must find new ways to generate revenue and better ways to connect advertisers and audiences.

• Media organizations that care about customers — advertisers as well as consumers — will carefully balance short-term gain with long-term brand equity. For newspapers, brand equity is all about being credible and trustworthy.

Like other newspapers, The Seattle Times has been exploring all kinds of ideas. So far, the ones we've implemented haven't generated significant negative reader reaction.

In general, the guiding principle for advertising acceptance at The Times is that our standards should ensure that all advertising published is in the best interest of readers and advertisers. The Times doesn't knowingly accept an advertisement that might be considered misleading, fraudulent, illegal, unfair, suggestive or in bad taste.

The Times for some time has set limits around tobacco, handguns and exploitative adult content in advertising, which have not changed much in the past 15 years.

In regard to new ad positions, probably the most visible recent change was taking a relatively large ad on the front of TV Times. We've also agreed to experiment with smaller ads on some section fronts where the content essentially is a consumer guide and the ad content is an important part of the total content mix, such as Motoring, Job Market and Travel.

Lately, we accepted a form of advertising we call "power notes." These are small self-stick, removable notes with ad messages printed on them. They have been a huge hit with advertisers, and we've had hardly any reader complaints.

We've accepted some creatively shaped ads and rejected others. Our aim is to avoid ads that deliberately confuse readers about what is news and what is an ad or that seriously interfere with the reading experience. We seek to avoid configurations that give a false impression that the advertiser has any role in creating or directing news content.

We have long accepted what is called an "island" ad that appears in the middle of a page of tabular material, such as stock listings. But we don't accept "watermark" ads that are printed over news text. The difference is that the island ad is separate from the news material and doesn't interfere with it, while the watermark is intrusive.

These choices are necessarily subjective, and not everybody will agree with them. Some readers would be happier if we ran no advertising, and others cherish ads as much as any other content. So, pleasing everybody all of the time isn't possible.

These decisions involve a lot of give and take and trade-offs. We make them collaboratively, with representatives from News, Advertising, Circulation and Marketing in the conversations. One thing I would want readers to know is that everyone in the discussions shares the same commitment to journalistic and business excellence.

So, you needn't worry that we'll start doing the kinds of "product placement" in which someone pays us to put their commercial message in the body of a story or column. It'll never happen.

And, now that my column is done, I need to get to the daily news meeting, where everyone will be eating Top Pot doughnuts and drinking Starbucks coffee.

(That's a joke, too.)

Inside The Times appears in the Sunday Seattle Times. If you have a comment on news coverage, write to Michael R. Fancher, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111, call 206-464-3310 or send e-mail to mfancher@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists