He reported it first: MoveOn got a sweetheart deal for its 'General Betray Us' ad.
If [Jake] Tapper's numbers are correct, MoveOn.org paid just 38.89% of a full-cost, nationwide ad, or a 61.11% discount off of a full-rate ad. While I'm fairly certain that nobody pays "sticker" prices, 61% off seems a rather sweet deal.
Now the New York Post weighs in:
According to Abbe Serphos, director of public relations for the Times, "the open rate for an ad of that size and type is $181,692."
A spokesman for MoveOn.org confirmed to The Post that the liberal activist group had paid only $65,000 for the ad - a reduction of more than $116,000 from the stated rate.
And Jake Tapper gives a nod to Owens and puts the question directly to the Times:
Mathis says the newspaper tries "to keep our advertising columns as open as possible" and "there are many instances when we've published opinion advertisements that run counter to the stance that we take on our own editorial pages." As an example of how the Times is open to all points of view in advertisers, Mathis points out that on September 11, 2007, "we published a full-page advertisement from Freedom'sWatch.org, an organization whose view is opposite of MoveOn.org."
Freedom's Watch spokesman Matt David, however tells me the group was charged "significantly more" than MoveOn.org for its ad. The organization says it plans to run a response to the MoveOn.org NYT ad in the Times, "and we plan to demand the same ad rate they paid," David says.
Jules Crittenden: "It isn't editorializing. It's subsidizing propaganda."
