As we move into

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

As we move into the rough and tumble of the final month of this campaign, let me take a brief moment to restate the TPM ad policy first discussed here just under a year ago.

(If you’d rather read about US politics rather than this site’s ad policy — which I’d entirely understand — by all means scroll down to the next post.)

I’ve gotten many questions about this via email. So let me try to address them again in one fell swoop.

The ads that run on this site represent a commercial transaction. There is no implied endorsement whatsoever.

Recently, there was one ad running on this site that was pro-Nader; another that was anti-Nader. People wrote in complaining about the pro-Nader ad; others were miffed by the anti-Nader ad. And when they were both running at the same time there were several complaints from folks claiming it was hypocritical to run both of them since I could not support the messages contained in each.

Anybody who’s read this site for any length of time knows there aren’t many people who have a dimmer view of Ralph Nader these days than I do. But, again, the ad space is open to all political views — left, right and center.

That doesn’t mean that everything is allowed. I reserve the right to reject ads that I find inappropriate for reasons of content or taste. And I would reject ads that I thought were unambiguously spreading falsehoods. But in each case my effort would be to lean in the direction of inclusion. And I would do my best to make the judgment with as little coloration as possible by my political views.

(I have, for instance, rejected a number of ads over the last year. Some of those were simply cases of content that censors wouldn’t let you put on TV — four letter words, sexual content, etc. Most though were ads that attacked the president in ways I found tasteless, needlessly degrading or just disrespectful.)

I think this is a sound policy, both practically and in principle. And I don’t plan on changing it. But I welcome your views and suggestions.

Latest Editors' Blog
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: