[Peace] Re: NY Times fails to publish NION statement

[blue2 at net66.com]

On 21 Jan 2005 at 23:03, Not In Our Name wrote:

We had planned for the new Not In Our Name statement of 
conscience to
run on Friday, January 21, in the New York Times. We had a 
contract
and a confirmation number. This ad was to be our answer to the
inauguration, and it was timed to appear in the middle of the
inauguration news coverage.

The ad did not run. The advertising department were themselves 
deeply
surprised by this, and have not been able to explain what 
happened. In
fact, we were told that to their knowledge this had never happened
before.

At the same time, the Times lead editorial said that this should be 
a
time of legitimacy and acceptance for the President -- and that this
was especially something that the opposition has to come to terms
with.

It is unacceptable that we do not yet know why something that "has
never happened before" happened -- a full page paid ad, accepted 
and
slotted in, did not run. This is especially so when the content of the
ad, the need to resist the course that this administration has set, is
so important to the people of this country and the world. There 
needs
to be an investigation of what went wrong and why. If it was just an
honest mistake, we expect that the Times itself would want to know 
why
in order to prevent it from occurring again.

The Times has given us a new ad reservation number and assured 
us that
the ad will now run on this Sunday. However, there is the danger of 
it
being buried in the back of the first section. This would be another
way of marginalizing and rendering relatively invisible the voices of
conscience and dissent.

We urge signers and supporters of the statement to e-mail the 
Times to
demand that the ad run in the Sunday Week in Review section 
(where
there will be summation of the inauguration) or in the first 10 pages
of the first section. Send to the President and General Manager of 
the
Times at president at nytimes.com and to the advertising 
department at
advertising at nytimes.com.

We also urge people to write letters to the Times in response to 
their
editorial
(http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/21/opinion/21fri1.html?oref=login
) and
requesting that your letter run on Monday. It would make a huge
difference in making up the loss of the statement not running 
today,
if people would quote or reference the Not In Our Name statement 
as
part of their answer to the Times.