whitebeard

Don't curse the darkness, light a candle.

Saturday, January 22, 2005

Celebration of Freedom - tribute to democracy

something that "has never happened before" happened

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@nytimes.com and to the advertising department at advertising@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.