Imagine my surprise when I went to my Flint Journal box this afternoon and found my Monday Journal wrapped in a bag with a Pro-NRA, Anti-Obama message on it. See photo I took above.
My first reaction was the paper obviously received a chunk of money to put the newspaper in the bag, first to protect it from this morning's rainstorm, but lastly to put a little hard cash in the Journal register. (The date on my camera is incorrect and I'm too stupid to know how to fix it, the date should be 11/03/2008, but like the Journal, I apologize).
On my local weekly, there was a sticker promoting a local Republican candidate for the State House race and I didn't think much of it either.
But then I turned to Mlive.com and found that the Flint Journal had apologized to its readers and said the plastic bag wrapper was a "mistake." That really stretches credulity. The exact wording of the apology said the wrapper was supposed to be inside the paper.
Huh? Why would a plastic bag, the perfect size for a small newspaper to be rolled up inside be stuffed inside a newspaper? Doesn't make any sense at all.
Why not just admit you took a boat load of cash to wrap the newspaper in an ad and that your endorsement of Barack Obama trumps the ad anyway. Instead the paper is falling all over itself to claim the stuffing of the newspaper in the bag was a "mistake," wink, wink.
The string of comments are pretty amusing and I commend them to your reading. The link to the apology and the comments is here:
I smell another Columbia Journalism Review criticism coming soon.
Actually, with the folks here in Lapeer County, it was probably pretty well received. Judging by the comments on the Journal's website, not so much in Genesee County.
4 comments:
bay city did it too and kind of explained it.
http://blog.mlive.com/bctimes/2008/11/about_the_nra_bag_on_papers_mo.html
About the NRA bag on papers Monday
Posted by The Bay City Times November 04, 2008 08:50AM
Categories: Community News, Election, Front Page and Local
The Bay City Times provided the bags that contained your newspaper Monday. Your carrier was not responsible for the bag's advertising message.
The Times accepts political advertising. The newspaper doesn't necessarily endorse the opinions of our advertisers. The Times publishes its choice for president on the editorial page, and did so there two Sundays ago.
The Journal doesn't seem to be in any shape to refuse legitimate, paid political advertising (and I say this as an Obama supporter and proponent of gun control). But what's with the lame excuse that putting thousands of papers in bags was an "accident"? Here's an idea the editors could try: Take a principled stand (for a change) and explain to their offended, high school civics-challenged readers that the First Amendment guarantees everybody's right to free speech, not just the opinions of a selected group.
I totally agree with inky..
I think it's lame that the Flint Journal is blaming their carriers for this. The letter the carriers got on October 15th from the Journal stated:
"NRA has provided The Flint Journal with special bags to be used with the delivery of Monday November 3rd. The Journal will pay participating carriers _______ for each newspaper delivered IN the special bag on that day"
Later on they changed their minds and told us to not put the papers in the bag, but to insert or roll them with the paper. This was not mailed out to us, and it seems that not everyone got the updated message.
Whether the bag was in the paper, rolled in the paper, or the paper was in the bag, isn't the problem. The Flint Journal should have just said "This is a paid advertisement, and we are in the business of making money on advertisements. Contact the NRA and complain to them." and been done with it..
The people out there making a big stink about this plastic bag are doing exactly what the NRA had hoped for. Getting the NRA's message out to an even bigger audience.
Yeah, boy howdy.... we got to see just how "tolerant" Obama supporters really are.
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