How the New York Times keeps tragedies ad-free

Post by krishy » Wed, Mar 25, 2015, 3:04 PM UTC

soneil wrote: post #36

maxerickson wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the NYT meta header is just a similar flag leaking out, or if it is something that can be abused client side to never have ads. It's totally unsurprising that it would be a CMS feature, I'm a little taken aback each time I see a crass juxtaposition on smaller sites (more out of surprise at them not doing it than any particular personal sensitivity to it).

I took a look at the first result that popped up ( http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/world/europe/germanwings-a... ) and interestingly, this ad_sensitivity tag is set to "tragedy". I'm curious to know what other options there are now - whether this is boolean, or a sliding scale.

Post by schoen » Wed, Mar 25, 2015, 4:00 PM UTC

dfc wrote: post #42

Theodores wrote: post #13

This is '9/11 preparedness' to a certain extent. Remember when that happened how there were no adverts anywhere for a week or so? The music changed too, no 'John Lennon' songs were played for a while. This does need to be fine grained. Although the UK is adjacent to France and Germany the current disaster is not nationally significant in the UK in that there will not be days of mourning, people being quiet for two mi…

No John Lennon songs?

Post by philwelch » Wed, Mar 25, 2015, 4:11 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #27

universaltest wrote: post #4

> it’s almost an acknowledgement that ads are invasive and uncomfortable. They cross over into the intolerable range when we’re emotionally vulnerable from a tragic story. Is it really this, or is it that advertisers don't want their brand associated with negativity in general? How they're doing it is interesting, but I think the analysis is weird.

Agreed. It would be highly inappropriate to introduce a TV news story about a fatal crash with "Happy Monday!" and that's not because wishing people a good day is invasive. It's just not appropriate for that story.

Post by nkozyra » Wed, Mar 25, 2015, 5:13 PM UTC

hrktb wrote: post #9

universaltest wrote: post #4

> it’s almost an acknowledgement that ads are invasive and uncomfortable. They cross over into the intolerable range when we’re emotionally vulnerable from a tragic story. Is it really this, or is it that advertisers don't want their brand associated with negativity in general? How they're doing it is interesting, but I think the analysis is weird.

How may articles are actually positive in a newspaper? IMO advertisers understand that contents making people angry (like politics, mostly) or sad will drive most of the page views, and are OK with some level of negativity. Tragedies directly affecting their potential customers is just a bridge too far. For comparison, discussion on afghanistan and air strikes is OK: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/25/world/asia/ashra…

Post by dfc » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 1:59 PM UTC

schoen wrote: post #43

dfc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No John Lennon songs?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Clear_Channel_memorandum