By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
DEC. 13, 2022 | Georgia’s runoff election put the state in the political spotlight. With the way political campaigns work, it also targeted the state for a barrage of political advertising that the two Senate runoff candidates generated. Boy, did they fund them! And boy, did we all get tired of them!
Besides the constant barrage of television commercials, another aspect was the harsh way many of the advertisements railed against their opponent. It certainly could propel some would-be candidates to think “I’m not putting my family through that.”
However, don’t primarily blame the politicos for these drawbacks to democracy. After all, there is no requirement that TV stations (or newspapers) must run these advertisements. A new development came recently when one media company decided that it had enough of the political attack advertisements, in particular. All Trib Total Media of Tarentum, Penn. has a new policy in regard to these commercials, as it told its audiences: “They (political ads) can be about the candidate, but not about the opponent.”
Hurrah for Jennifer Bertetto, president and CEO of All Trib Total Media, of suburban Pittsburgh.
Bertetto
She said in announcing the policy: “First, this change is meant to better serve our readers. Candidates will seek votes by describing their virtues and explaining their platforms. The reader can decide if the pitch adds up — without being confused by claims and criticism about another candidate.
“But, overall, this new policy is our response to political ads that coarsen and cheapen politics. We’re just one media outlet, serving a local audience in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Yet, as we act to create a more constructive setting for political advocacy, we also hope that other media consider a similar move.”
You also need to know that this new policy does not come from some upstart publication or radical publisher. Jennifer Bertetto, before the new policy was announced, was recently named “Publisher of the Year” by the national trade journal Editor and Publisher. It cited her previous experience as someone “who has risen above the rest and accomplished what seems like the impossible, outmaneuvering the competition, outthinking the future and maintaining profitability.”
She became head of All Trib Total Media in 2014, after the death of the previous company owner, Richard Scaife. Wikipedia notes of Scaife: “Richard Mellon Scaife was an American billionaire, a principal heir to the Mellon banking, oil, and aluminum fortune, and the owner and publisher of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. In 2005, Scaife was number 238 on the Forbes 400, with a personal fortune of $1.2 billion.” Scaife was known for his conservative instincts.
What the new publisher, Ms. Bertetto, has shown is that there is more than one way to skin a cat. Media people don’t have to automatically accept every new dollar that is thrown their way. They can have policies about what they accept for publication or be aired. Freedom of the press can also mean that they can reject what to them is offensive – in any way.
However, for certain, it’s not every day that newspapers or TV stations put up a defensive net for their readers and viewers, and reject advertising money aimed at them. We would like to see them reject more advertising….including some of the outlandish claims that advertisers make. But all too often, principle is out the door, and going to the bank reigns.
Hurrah for Jennifer Bertetto. The trade journal knew what it was doing when it named her Publisher of the Year.
(Thanks to Tommy Purser of the Jeff Davis Ledger in Hazlehurst for putting us onto to this story.)
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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