isen.blog

Joshua Micah Marshall did not mean to write about the layers model, but he winds up doing just that when he declares his site's policy for running ads. He says, basically, that while he could stop ads for stuff he doesn't like, he doesn't. He continues:

If we reject ads that we disagree with, every ad we accept becomes, to one degree or another, a de facto endorsement . . . Even worse a paid endorsement. And that threatens the integrity of what we do -- which is to report the facts we find and explain the opinions we have . . . our attitude toward who is advertising and what they are advocating is one of intentional indifference . . . So when you see an ad on our site you shouldn't draw any conclusion from its presence . . . It only means that the advertiser has purchased a product we sell.

Josh is not absolutist about this.

Do we ever reject ads? Yes, we do. In most cases they're ads for 'dating services' that look like they might run afoul of anti-solicitation laws . . . there were also some ads for anti-Bush goods that I rejected because I found them tasteless. We of course frequently reject ads that are too visually jarring and we're pretty strict on not having ads that have little creatures running across the site or stuff like that. I would reject an ad that contained what I considered hate speech or an ad which itself seemed intentionally demeaning to our audience.

Josh concludes:

. . . this policy -- one of intentional indifference to the political content of the advertising that appears on our sites -- is one I'm confident is the right one for us because it protects what is most important to us which is the integrity and credibility of the news and opinion we publish.

Intentional Indifference. To preserve integrity. What an idea. Maybe telcos and cablecos and other providers of Internet access will adopt Intentional Indifference to preserve their integrity too.

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