Felix Salmon reports that there was an 8-page advertising supplement in Tuesday’s NY Times extolling the virtues of the genocidal Sudanese government.
Some commentary here:
The supplement lauds Sudan for facing a “peaceful, prosperous and democratic future 
Instapundit notes, against their defense that they keep the advertising, news, and editorial content independent of each other,
Well, if you only take ads from organizations that share your opinions, then people will accuse you of being bought off. That’s a good argument for taking a wide range of ads, but there ought to be some limits. My blogads policy has been pretty much anything but Nazis. But Sudan looks pretty close to that line.
Considering that the nation’s most outspoken voice on Darfur is probably Kristof, who writes frequently and passionately about the crimes of the Sudanese govt on the NYT’s op-ed page, I don’t think you can criticize them on this. I hope the “save Darfur” movement takes this as a sign that they’re a threat to the Sudanese govt. And I hope that it backfires on the govt by raising the profile of Darfur a little higher.
I’ll have to get ahold of a copy of this ad. I’ve previously commented on how crappy their propaganda is.
I think you’re probably right in that the story here isn’t really the NYT’s advertising policies, although you could argue that taking ads from the Sudanese government crosses some sort of line. You could criticize them for that, but especially with Kristof’s articles there’s no way you could argue that the NYT is somehow “on the side of” the Sudanese government. I’m sure some blogger with an axe to grind will feel free to casually toss off inane comments like “the genocide-supporting New York Times,” though.
Maybe the real story here is revealing the sort of propaganda the Sudanese government will try to foist on us to convince us they’re good guys.
> you could argue that taking ads from the
> Sudanese government crosses some sort of line
I should clarify that I wouldn’t accept ads from General al-Bashir if I were running the NYT ad department, but then again I wouldn’t run ads from far lesser criminals like Exxon or Phillip Morris, either.
I’m not surprised that the business side of the NYT, like most businesses, is generally amoral. That’s how you survive in most marketplaces. And that’s why nobody’s going to hire me to sell ads.
here is the ad: http://www.summitreports.com/pdfs/sudan.pdf