Times concedes error with Moveon.org ad

The New York Times is backing down - somewhat - on a controversial ad placed by the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org that infuriated conservatives.

Under the headline “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?” the full-page ad contended that the American commander in Iraq was “constantly at war with the facts” in giving upbeat assessments of progress and refusing to acknowledge that Iraq is “mired in an unwinnable religious civil war … Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.”

But on Sunday, the New York Times admitted it “made a mistake” by charging MoveOn a discount rate to run the ad. Some conservative groups had criticized the Times for playing favorites with MoveOn by charging the lower price.

The lower rate of $64,575 is normally reserved for ads that can be placed at any time - a standby rate. But MoveOn’s full-page ad ran on the same day as Petraeus’s testimony before Congress - exactly when they wanted it to run. The Times said it should have charged $142,083 for running the ad on that specific date, and MoveOn has agreed to pay the difference.

Did the Times violate its own ethics rules by running the ad in the first place?

Yes, according to Clark Hoyt, the newspaper’s public editor. “The ad appears to fly in the face of an internal advertising acceptability manual that says, ‘We do not accept opinion advertisements that are attacks of a personal nature,’ ” Hoyt wrote in the Times on Sunday.

“Steph Jespersen, the executive who approved the ad, said that, while it was ‘rough,’ he regarded it as a comment on a public official’s management of his office and therefore acceptable speech for The Times to print.”

The Times public editor wasn’t the only critic of the ad. Conservatives were outraged and flooded the Times with more than 4,000 emails saying running the ad was “despicable,” a “disgrace,” and “treason.” President Bush called the ad disgusting and Vice President Dick Cheney called it “an outrage,” and even the Democratic-controlled Senate overwhelmingly condemned the ad in a public vote.

But even under this assault, MoveOn.org isn’t backing down. It was still promoting the “General Betray Us” ad on the front section of its website Sunday. It did, however, agree to cut another check to the Times. “Now that the Times has revealed this mistake for the first time, and while we believe that the $142,083 figure is above the market rate paid by most organizations, out of an abundance of caution we have decided to pay that rate for this ad,” the group said in statement.

Tweet This! Share on Facebook

Click here to sign up for the Muckety Newsletter

• MoveOn chooses winning entry in Obama ad competition - May 14, 2008
• Retired military officers act as Pentagon media machine - April 21, 2008
• Sarah Palin reads the New York Times - October 7, 2008
• The well-connected Mel Sembler - October 2, 2007
• Colbert vote skyrockets - October 27, 2007
• Three of the four candidates on the presidential slates have children in the military - August 30, 2008
• Edward Gillespie takes Karl Rove role in the White House - May 21, 2008
• Ross G. Douthat follows in footsteps of William Kristol - April 22, 2009
• New Freedom’s Watch looks a lot like old Republican Congressional Committee - April 18, 2008
• Bono to write op-ed columns for New York Times - October 23, 2008