Front page to the highest bidder?

THE EDITOR, Sir:

I SEE that in today's Gleaner (Monday, April 9), you have relegated the news to second place in favour of a high-priced full colour advertisement. So your readers woke up to the ringing front page "news" about "a cell phone that comes in a box already connected". It does seem that, after all, money can buy almost anything, including your front page, second page and ultimately, maybe, your paper's editorial integrity.

In publishing the full front page ad, I wonder if you had stopped to think about the implicit statement you are making, as a leading national daily, about what is important to the country as a whole? As I am sure you know, the front page of a national daily newspaper is usually reserved as a window on the most significant and timely news items of the past 24 hours. That choice may well vary from publication to publication. But it is on the judgement of each Editor that the public must rely for an informed selection of 'the most important front page news'.

If you felt that the single most important development in the national, regional or global contexts over the last 24 hours was the availability of "a cell phone that comes in a box already connected", then, maybe you should have deployed your best news writer to prepare a lead story to that effect.

However, from all appearances, it is the advertising revenue, not so much the editorial considerations, that motivated decision-making about the front page in that issue. In exchange for that revenue, the Gleaner today traded in the tradition of a news-based front page for a four-page advertising 'wrap' from Cable and Wireless. It may not be the first time that the front page has been sold to a special advertising client and it may not be the last. If some other major advertiser should come up with an equivalent or higher sum, then they may, doubtless, be accorded equal treatment: front page to the highest bidder.

That way, your readers may well have to get accustomed to full-page ads on the front page, as a norm. And the Gleaner, for its part, may look forward to more advertising revenue. But what of your editorial role? While it is acknowledged that advertising serves an important function and is the single most important source for financing media, care has to be exercised about the dominance of large advertisers over the editorial decision-making and output of media houses.

I am etc.,

HOPETON DUNN

CARIMAC, UWI

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