538 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH september 2011 DOI: 10.2501/JAR-51-3-538-552
InTRODUCTIOnAdvertisers often attempt to influence media by
asking for special favors in exchange for their
advertising dollars. Abundant anecdotal (Atkin-
son, 2004; Christians et al., 2009; Collins, 1992; Fine,
2004; Gorman, 2010; Gremillion and Yates, 1997;
Hickey, 1998; Hoyt, 1990; Ives, 2010; Knecht, 1997;
Rappleye, 1998; Sanders and Halliday, 2005; Sutel,
2005; Underwood, 1998a, 1998b) and more limited
empirical evidence (An and Bergen, 2007; Hays
and Reisner, 1990; Howland, 1989; Just and Levine,
2000; Just, Levine, and Regan, 2001; Price, 2003;
Reisner and Walter, 1994; Soley and Craig, 1992)
suggest the existence of “advertiser pressure”—the
term introduced by Soley and Craig (1992).
Favors in exchange of advertising dollars are “on
top of” the scheduled media buy and can range
from special advertising placement to overt manip-
ulation of editorial content including both favora-
ble stories supporting the campaign and avoidance
of any voices critical of the advertiser or its busi-
ness category. “Advertiser pressure”—especially if
the tactic is successful—represents a serious threat
to consumer interests and, as such, is a key (yet,
often unrecognized) advertising-ethics issue.
The separation between editorial and advertis-
ing content belongs to the core of normative jour-
nalistic and media ethics, and it is often compared
to the fundamental political principle of the separa-
tion of “church and state” in modern democracies
(Rappleye , 1998). Although the First Amendment
of the U.S. Constitution advocates freedom only
from state intervention, the notion of the “free
media” often is understood in the sense of inde-
pendence from commercial interests (Shoemaker
and Reese, 1991).
In fact, some critics argue that “private entities in
general and advertisers in particular constitute the
most consistent and the most pernicious ‘censors’
of media content” (Baker, 1992, p. 2099). Indeed,
the independent and free democratic press—which
is not unduly influenced by private or state inter-
ests—is perceived as a key political institution to
most political convictions.
AdvertiserPressureandthePersonalEthical
normsofnewspaperEditorsandAdDirectors
GERGELYnYILASYuniversity of [email protected]
LEOnARDn.REIDuniversity of [email protected]
newspaper journalists and advertising directors were surveyed to update and extend
research on advertising pressure. Results reveal that:
• advertiser pressure is widespread in newspapers; despite economic threats, however,
advertisers succeed with their influence attempts relatively infrequently;
• smaller newspapers do not differ much from larger ones with regard to any forms of
advertiser pressure;
• advertising directors are more permissive in their personal ethical norms for handling
advertiser pressure than editors;
• employees of small newspapers are not much more permissive in their ethical norms
than those of large papers; and
• the amount of economic pressure a newspaper received (but not other forms of
pressure such as influence attempts and acquiescence) is positively correlated with
the permissiveness of media workers’ personal ethical norms.
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The second, more pragmatic, problem is
the potential for consumer deception. As
Hoyt suggested in the Columbia Journalism
Review (1990, “From the reader’s perspec-
tive this confluence of advertising and edito-
rial is confusing: Where does the sales pitch
end? Where does the editor take over?”
There is some evidence that original edi-
torial content is perceived as more trust-
worthy than advertisements provided by
third parties (Cameron, 1994). If, by using
this perceptual difference, advertisers
actively manipulate editorial content—
and this influence is not acknowledged—
consumers are deceived in their search for
reliable product information.
In this latter sense, advertiser pressure
falls under a larger ethical problem area:
the increasing “blurring of advertising
and editorial content” (Peeler and Guthrie,
2007).
Infomercials, advertorials, product
placement, branded entertainment, cer-
tain forms of public relations, and emerg-
ing digital forms of communication (viral
marketing, buzz marketing/seeding,
blogger outreach) all potentially are ethi-
cally problematic because of consumers’
inability to identify whether the informa-
tion is sponsored (and as such, subject to
appropriate attributions about intent and
information value) or “objective” (not
intentionally furthering commercial inter-
ests; Spence and van Heekeren, 2005).
The blurring of editorial and adver-
tising content may deceive even the
“informed, skeptical, sophisticated con-
sumer” (Preston, 2010), on whom much
of modern consumer-interest regulation
is based, because he or she does not have
a chance for an accurate assessment of
source credibility.
Advertising practitioners may not fully
appreciate these issues identified by ethics
scholars. There seems to be a gap between
the enthusiasm of the proponents of
editorial/advertising intermingling and
the vigilance of ethics researchers. What
is “economic censorship” (Baker, 1992),
“advertiser pressure” (Soley and Craig,
1992) or “sponsor interference” (Just and
Levine, 2000) for ethics academics seems
to be value-neutral conceptualizations
of “product placement in print” (Atkin-
son, 1994; Fine, 2004), “entertainment/
advertising convergence” (Donaton, 2004)
or “value-added media buy” (“Media
Round Table,” 1990; Fahey, 1991; Hoyt,
1990) for some advertising practitioners.
The topic is all the more important
today because media—especially tradi-
tional print media—are undergoing radi-
cal transformation and are under severe
economic pressure (Nyilasy, King, and
Reid, 2011). It has been argued that cer-
tain forms of media undergoing economic
hardship are more willing to compromise
on ethical norms than economically pow-
erful players within a market (Soley and
Craig, 1992; An and Bergen, 2007). Print
media, particularly newspapers, therefore
are prime candidates for increased acqui-
escence to advertiser pressure.
For all these reasons, it is imperative
that academic research give detailed and
updated accounts of advertiser pressure.
The consequences of advertiser pressure
are far-reaching; it has both ethical and
managerial implications for both media
and advertising organizations, let alone
millions of consumers. Perhaps surpris-
ingly, despite the foremost importance of
advertiser pressure, very little is known
about the phenomenon in an empirically
rigorous manner.
The purpose of the research reported
in this article is to give a recent and com-
prehensive update on the phenomenon, in
the context of the newspaper industry. The
contribution of the study is threefold:
• It takes a fresh look at both the extent
to which advertiser pressure is present
in the newspaper business and the fre-
quency by which it occurs today.
• It incorporates the investigation of per-
sonal ethical norms for handling adver-
tiser pressure.
• It targets not only newspaper editors
but newspaper advertising directors.
Although advertiser pressure is present
in all media, the authors selected the con-
text of newspapers for the present research
because, arguably, newspapers represent
the traditional elite of journalism. Thus, it
is in newspapers that the consequences of
advertiser pressure are both the most sali-
ent and potentially the most severe.
LITERATUREREvIEW:ADvERTISInGETHICSAnDADvERTISERPRESSUREBefore a review of the targeted empirical
literature on advertiser pressure, it makes
sense to situate the subject in the broader
theoretical and empirical tradition of
advertising ethics.
Despite its importance, the topic of
advertiser pressure on media, surpris-
ingly, does not appear very frequently on
the agenda of advertising-ethics research.
It is telling that although advertiser influ-
ence on media editorial content has been
proposed as a high-priority research topic
(Hyman, Tansey, and Clark, 1994), only
a handful of targeted studies on the sub-
ject have been conducted to date. Further,
Advertiser pressure is widespread in newspapers;
despite economic threats, however, advertisers succeed
with their influence attempts relatively infrequently.
540 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH september 2011
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the topic does not appear in more gen-
eral accounts of advertising practition-
ers’ ethical views (Chen and Liu, 1998;
Drumwright and Murphy, 2004; Hunt
and Chonko, 1987; Rotzoll and Christians,
1980).
One possible explanation for this lack of
salience is that it is not advertising agen-
cies—but rather the advertisers them-
selves—that exert pressure on media.
Because practitioner surveys/interviews
in advertising ethics traditionally have
focused on agencies, the topic remains
hidden from view.
The study of advertiser pressure also is
difficult to situate within advertising eth-
ics’ classic typologies. Although the field
of advertising ethics traditionally deals
with either the “advertising message” or
the “advertising business” (Drumwright
and Murphy, 2009), advertiser pressure
falls somewhere between those two topics.
It clearly is an organizational ethics issue;
however, it has an impact on consum-
ers through the manipulation of editorial
content.
In the macro-meso-micro typology of
marketing ethics’ levels of analysis (Brink-
mann, 2002; Victor and Cullen, 1988),
advertiser pressure has relevance on all
layers. It is a larger societal issue in the
aggregate; it is influenced by organiza-
tional climate (meso-level); it is enacted
by individual players on the micro-level
and, in this last sense, it is a “personal eth-
ics” problem (Shaver, 2003). Although the
authors recognize all these relevant layers
(also encompassed by Hunt and Vitell’s
comprehensive marketing ethics model
(2006), the present paper focuses on per-
sonal ethical norms (Kohlberg, 1984) when
explaining how media workers confront
advertiser pressure.
Although there are numerous anec-
dotal accounts of advertiser pressure
affecting all media forms (Atkinson,
2004; Christians et al., 2009; Collins, 1992;
Fine, 2004; Gorman, 2010; Gremillion and
Yates, 1997; Hickey, 1998; Hoyt, 1990;
Ives, 2010; Knecht, 1997; Rappleye, 1998;
Sanders and Holliday, 2005; Sutel, 2005;
Underwood 1998a, 1998b), little system-
atic empirical evidence has been pub-
lished in academe.
The authors undertook an extensive
search of research publications to identity
studies on advertiser pressure on media.
The step-by-step process started with
searching research databases (i.e., EBSCO
Business Source Premier and Academic
Research Premier, Emerald, Factiva) for
the keywords of “advertiser pressure,”
and “advertising” and “media” combined
with “social pressure,” “censorship,”
“self-censorship,” “ethics,” “corrupt prac-
tices.” Next, the titles of papers in the con-
tents of the main advertising journals (i.e.,
Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising
Research, International Journal of Advertising
and Journal of Current Issues and Research in
Advertising) were scanned for relevance.
Finally, the literature review sections and
references were read in the identified
papers for further literature. The authors
focused the literature review on the most
important papers, as evidenced by their
highest citation levels or inherent research
interest.
Systematic scholarly evidence comes in
two forms on the topic: indirect and direct.
Indirect evidence is based on the compari-
son of editorial and advertising content.
Studies in this group investigated whether
there was a correlation between the fre-
quency/quality of editorial coverage and
the frequency of advertising (for the given
advertiser/industry) in the media/vehicle
studied. The results were mixed. Some
studies found a strong correlation and
deduced the existence of successful adver-
tiser pressure (Reuter and Zitzewitz, 2006;
Rinallo and Basuroy, 2009; Williams, 1992).
Others found no relationship (Rouner,
Slater, Long, and Stapel, 2009; Poitras and
Sutter, 2009).
Direct evidence is supplied by surveys
among media workers. Soley and Craig’s
“Advertiser Pressures on Newspapers: A
Survey” in the Journal of Advertising (1992)
proved that the phenomenon existed at
that time. That paper also provided an
estimate of the phenomenon’s spread in
U.S. newspapers. The survey investigated
its three facets:
• Influence attempts—advertisers try-
ing to include positive and exclude or
manipulate negative stories
• Economic pressure—the threat to with-
draw and actual withdrawal of advertis-
ing from the medium
• Acquiescence—the extent to which
newspapers cede to advertiser pressure
through:
– complying to overt influence
attempts,
– internalizing the pressure, and
– self-censorship.
Findings showed that the majority of
newspaper editors (in the 70- to 90-percent
range) had experienced advertiser pres-
sure in the form of both influence attempts
and threats of advertising withdrawal.
Acquiescing to such overt pressure, how-
ever, seemed to be much less common
among editors.
Despite its importance, the topic of advertiser pressure
on media, surprisingly, does not appear very frequently
on the agenda of advertising-ethics research.
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A more recent study (An and Bergen,
2007) surveyed advertising directors
at daily newspapers using a scenario
approach. Although the study confirmed
the existence of ethical dilemmas around
advertiser pressure, because of its use of
hypothetical scenarios it did not directly
report on the extent of the phenomenon
and, therefore, is not directly comparable
to Soley and Craig’s study (1992).
Magazines also have had their share of
advertiser pressure. A survey reported in
Folio, a magazine for magazine manag-
ers, reported that more than 40 percent of
the editors surveyed had been instructed
by an advertising director or publisher to
do something that they believed signifi-
cantly compromised editorial (Howland,
1989). Acquiescence on the part of those
editors, however, was significantly lower;
according to the study, 60 percent of the
editors said “no” to the influence attempts.
Another survey among farm-magazine
writers and editors found that both influ-
ence attempts and threats to withdraw
advertising were common (Hays and Reis-
ner, 1990).
A replication of Soley and Craig’s 1992
study among television reporters and
editors showed that advertiser pressure
also was widespread in that medium
(Soley, 1997). The majority of respond-
ents reported that they had experienced
influence attempts and threats to with-
draw advertising; however, much less
actual withdrawal (44 percent) or suc-
cessful pressurizing (40 percent) was
reported. Two surveys conducted as part
of the Project for Excellence in Journal-
ism offered further support that a signifi-
cant number of television news directors
encountered advertiser pressures (Just
and Levine, 2000; Just, Levine, and Regan,
2001). These surveys examined only
the “influence attempts” dimension of
advertiser pressure, stating that it was
much more common to ask for favorable
coverage than attempting to prevent
negative stories to appear. In contrast, a
survey of television news directors found
no difference between the frequency of
pressure to report positive stories versus
not to report negative ones (Price, 2003).
Uniformly, 93 percent of the respondents
said they had never felt the pressure to do
either of these.
The aforementioned studies assessed
the extent to which advertiser pressure was
present in the media but left unanswered
the question regarding how often the phe-
nomenon happened. The only study that
reported how many times pressure was
exerted by advertisers on the medium is a
1994 survey of newspaper reporters cov-
ering agricultural news (Reisner and Wal-
ter, 1994). Results showed that advertiser
pressure was not as frequent as anecdo-
tal sources would have suggested: Even
though prepublication threats to withdraw
advertising were received almost every
month (M = 11.5 per year), other forms
of advertiser pressure (such as demands
for coverage, M = 1.7; post-publication
withdrawals, M = 0.1) occurred much less
frequently.
RESEARCHQUESTIOnSAnDHYPOTHESESBased on the literature, the authors tested
one research question and six hypotheses.
The research question addressed both the
extent and frequency with which advertis-
ers pressure newspapers.
R1: How widespread and how fre-
quent is advertiser pressure on
newspapers?
In 1992, Soley and Craig tested a com-
mon assumption of anecdotal sources:
the proposition that smaller market news-
papers are more susceptible to advertiser
pressure than large newspapers. They for-
mulated two hypotheses:
• Smaller newspapers are subject to
more influence attempts and economic
pressure.
• Smaller newspapers are more likely to
acquiesce to pressure.
The study had mixed results, con-
cluding that there was no evidence that
smaller newspapers received more pres-
sure; however, at least on one measure
of acquiescence—self-censorship—small
newspapers tended to score higher.
The authors’ first two hypotheses are as
follows:
H1: Small-circulation newspapers
are subject to more advertiser
pressure (in the forms of influ-
ence attempts and economic
pressure) than large newspapers.
H2: Small newspapers are more
likely to acquiesce to advertiser
pressure than large newspapers.
Journalism ethics codes traditionally
have advocated the maintenance of an
impenetrable wall between editorial and
advertising content. With the increasing
acceptance of the market-oriented news-
paper, however, the separation between
editorial and advertising department no
longer seems so absolute (Hoyt, 1990;
Underwood, 1998a, 1998b).
Although journalism associations stress
the absolute imperatives of editorial integ-
rity, independence, and accountability,
they do not provide specific and detailed
directives about how to handle pressure
in everyday practice (American Society of
Magazine Editors [ASME], 2010; Ameri-
can Society of Newspaper Editors [ASNE],
2010; Associated Press Managing Editors
[APME], 2010; Society of Professional Jour-
nalists [SPJ], 2010). Thus, subjective ethical
beliefs about appropriate advertiser/news-
paper interaction are more informative
542 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH september 2011
ADvERTIsER PREssuRE AnD nEwsPAPERs
about how advertising pressure will be
handled than written (but all too vague)
codes (Reisner and Walter, 1994). Indeed,
general media-ethics research guidelines
advocate the study of both explicit, written
codes and personal ethical criteria (Chris-
tians, Rotzoll, and Fackler, 1991).
There was only one study in the litera-
ture that dealt with such personal ethical
norms in the context of advertiser pressure
(Howland, 1989). The Folio survey among
magazine editors and advertising directors
contained a seven-item scale about per-
sonal ethical norms grounded in everyday
journalistic practice. The study found that
advertising directors seemingly were more
permissive about how they handled adver-
tiser pressure than editors. The authors’
third hypothesis is that the situation is the
same at modern newspapers:
H3: At newspapers, advertising
directors are more permissive in
their personal ethical norms for
handling advertising pressure
than editors.
As small newspapers are hypothesized to
be more prone to advertiser pressure and
acquiescence, it is reasonable to assume
there is also a difference in the personal
ethical norms with which they handle
such pressure. As small newspapers are
considered economically more vulnerable
(Soley and Craig, 1992), our hypothesis is
that they are also more permissive in how
they handle advertiser pressure. This sug-
gests a fourth hypothesis:
H4: The employees of small news-
papers are more permissive in
their subjective guidelines for
handling advertising pressure
than those of large newspapers.
Personal ethical norms for advertiser rela-
tions are not independent of the strength
of the advertiser pressure that the editorial
people are forced to handle. In fact, there
are a number of reasons why there may
be a positive relationship between adver-
tiser pressure strength and personal policy
permissiveness.
On the one hand, it might be more dif-
ficult for newspaper workers to maintain
traditional ethical values in an environ-
ment that strongly discourages them to
do so. Indeed, the pressures might be so
strong that employees would handle the
conflict by loosening some personal ethical
norms. On the other hand, the causal flow
might work the other way, too: the percep-
tion that newspaper workers are more per-
missive might encourage some advertisers
to exert more pressure on those newspa-
pers. Further, as ethical norms—both per-
sonal/implicit and explicitly stated—have
the purpose of resisting some allegedly
unethical behaviors, it follows that if these
ethical norms are less strict, the pressure
can be more successful.
Therefore, the authors’ final two hypoth-
eses are as follows:
H5: The presence of advertiser pres-
sures—both influence attempts
and economic pressure—is posi-
tively related to more permis-
sive personal ethical norms.
H6: More permissive personal ethi-
cal norms are positively related
to acquiescence to advertiser
pressure.
METHODOLOGYQuestionnaireConstructionandPretestThree facets of advertiser pressure were
measured by scales developed by Soley
and Craig (1992):
• Influence attempts—whether advertis-
ers attempted to influence the inclusion,
exclusion, and content of stories
• Economic pressure—whether adver-
tisers threatened to withdraw or in fact
withdrew their advertising from the
newspaper
• Newspaper acquiescence—whether
advertisers succeeded in pressuring
the newspaper to modify its editorial
content, or if the newspaper decided to
exercise self-censorship.
One item from the Soley and Craig
(1992) study (“Has there been pressure
from within your paper to write or tailor
news stories to please advertisers?”) was
omitted from the current research because
it was applicable to editors only, and thus
it did not suit the broader approach of
extending the study by the inclusion of
advertising directors. The option of ask-
ing the question of editors and advertis-
ing directors in different ways also was
rejected, because the intention was to
keep the questionnaire uniform, allow-
ing consistent comparisons across the two
groups. Additional items were included
to assess the strength of the different fac-
ets of advertiser pressure, asking for the
frequency with which the phenomena
occurred during the past year.
The concept of personal ethical norms
was measured by the scale developed by
Howland in Folio (1989). Open-end ques-
tions allowed respondents to include a
more detailed description of their reac-
tions to advertiser pressure and to specify
the advertiser groups from which they had
received the most attempts to influence
editorial content.
The instrument was pretested by asking
four journalism professors who reviewed
and evaluated the questionnaire items.
The four had significant professional jour-
nalistic experience and familiarity with
survey methodologies. No serious issues
were identified by the pretest, but the
questionnaire was slightly modified in
two ways:
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• The timeframe for measuring the rate
of recurrence of advertiser pressure was
expanded from a 2-month window to a
year to allow greater variance.
• The visual layout of the questionnaire as
posted on the Web site was simplified,
making the completion of the question-
naire easier for respondents.
SamplingA random sample of U.S. newspapers
was drawn from the Editor and Publisher
International Yearbook. “Large” newspa-
pers were defined operationally as the
“Top 100” daily newspapers listed by
the Yearbook; all these newspapers were
included in the sample. Further, a simple
random sample of smaller newspapers
(n = 100) was drawn from the rest of the
listed newspapers (the cutoff point for
the inclusion in the small category was
101,598 daily circulation). A similar sepa-
ration of large and small newspapers at
the 100,000 mark was used by Underwood
and Stamm in their “Balancing Business
with Journalism: Newsroom Policies at
12 West Coast Newspapers” in Journalism
Quarterly (1992).
From the staff of each large newspaper,
the managing editor, the national news
editor, the regional editor, and the adver-
tising director were selected. In the case of
small papers, the managing editor and the
advertising director were identified. The
sampling procedures yielded 392 e-mail
addresses for large newspapers and 173
for small dailies.
DataCollectionProceduresData were collected through a multimodal
survey; respondents were invited through
e-mails to go to a Web site and fill out the
questionnaire. The Internet platform was
chosen because it is an effective method
to reach respondents who might be over-
burdened by other, more traditional con-
tact attempts (Schaefer and Dillman,
1993; Cook, Heath, and Thompson, 2000).
Internet surveys also can be administered
much faster than mail surveys because of
instantaneous distribution and very high
response speed, two factors in achiev-
ing higher response rates (Illieva, Baron,
and Healey, 2002). Internet-based surveys
have been shown to be especially effective
with audiences that have near-universal
Internet-access (Couper, 2001). News-
paper workers are a good fit because they
are savvy Internet users who often check
e-mail and browse websites (Garrison,
2004).
To maximize response rate, a tailored
design to survey administration was uti-
lized (Dillman, 2000). An endorsement
e-mail from a well-known veteran journal-
ist—who was also the head of a credible
newspaper management research center—
was sent out to every respondent in the
sample. The letter emphasized the impor-
tance of participating in the study and
notified the respondents that the research-
ers will soon contact them through e-mail.
The invitation e-mail was sent out a few
days after the endorsement letter and
asked the recipients to participate in the
survey. The letter contained a hyperlink to
the opening webpage of the survey, which
had been placed on UGA’s website prior
to the mailings. The webpages included a
brief introduction, a consent form, and the
survey instrument itself. Complete ano-
nymity was promised, aiming at minimiz-
ing social desirability bias. A follow-up
e-mail was sent 3 weeks later reminding
the recipients to participate in the sur-
vey. Finally, a thank you note followed
3 weeks later, asking non-respondents
to visit the study website and fill out the
questionnaire.
One hundred and one questionnaires
were returned, of which 81 were com-
pleted and useable. After excluding unde-
liverable mailings, the adjusted response
rate was 23.4 percent. This figure is within
the inter-quartile range (20 percent–46
percent) of mail business sample response
rates, as evidenced by a recent meta-anal-
ysis in organizational research (Cycyota
and Harrison, 2006). Ethics topics are also
known for lower response rates, with
Hunt and Chonko (1987) reporting 17 per-
cent. Non-response error was checked by
comparing early and late responses on key
variables (Armstrong and Overton, 1977).
No significant differences were found.
FInDInGSThe majority of respondents were from
the editorial side (managing editors 46.9
percent; national and news editors, 11.1
percent; regional and city editors, 16.0 per-
cent), while 25.9 percent of the respond-
ents were advertising directors (See Table
1). Nearly three-quarters (71.6 percent) of
the responses were from large newspapers
(top 100, above 101,598 daily circulation).
AdvertiserPressure:InfluenceAttempts,EconomicPressure,andAcquiescenceThe different aspects advertiser pres-
sure—the primary focus of R1—showed
wide variation (See Table 2). Although
TABLE1Profile of national newspaper Respondents
Percent Frequency
Position (n = 81)
Managing Editor 46.9 38
national Editor/news Editor
11.1 9
Regional/Metro/city Editor
16.0 13
Advertising Director 25.9 21
Circulation Size (n = 81)
Above 101,598 71.6 58
Below 101,598 28.4 23
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ADvERTIsER PREssuRE AnD nEwsPAPERs
attempts to influence the selection of sto-
ries (reported by 64.2 percent of respond-
ents), to influence the content of stories
(70.9 percent), and both threatening to
withdraw advertising from the newspa-
per (80.0 percent) and actual withdrawal
(78.2 percent) were widespread, many
fewer cases were reported about advertis-
ers attempting to kill stories (37.2 percent)
or newspapers giving in to overt pressure
(23.4 percent) or practicing self-censorship
(19.8 percent).
The number of times advertisers exert
pressure on newspapers yearly also varied.
Although equally widespread, influence
attempts (on story selection: M = 3.8 per
year, SD = 8.69; on story content: M = 3.7, SD
= 7.49) seem to take place more frequently
than the use of economic pressure (threat to
withdraw: M = 2.2, SD = 3.01; withdrawal:
M = 1.0, SD = 1.38). In contrast, whereas few
newspapers acquiesced to advertiser pres-
sure, those that did seem to have given in
relatively frequently (M = 1.9, SD = 1.87)
compared to the number of attempts.
PersonalEthicalnormsforAdvertiserRelationsPersonal ethical norms for newspaper-
advertiser interaction also showed
some variation (See Table 3). Although
the majority of the respondents (64.2 per-
cent) said that they thought that there
was nothing wrong with the advertising
director delivering a press release to
the editor, asking the editor to have
lunch with advertisers (37.0 percent) or
to use advertisers as sources for stories
are considered much less acceptable (38.3
percent).
A request for a story by the advertising
director was adequate, according to 20 per-
cent of the respondents. Preference over
non-advertisers (8.6 percent) and advertis-
ing-director access to stories before print-
ing (3.7 percent) were even less favored.
TABLE2Advertiser Pressure: Influence Attempts, Economic Pressure, and Acquiescence†
validpercent Frequency
numberoftimeslastyear(mean)
numberoftimeslastyear(standarddeviation)
Influence Attempts
Attempt to influence story selection 64.2 52 3.8 8.69
Attempt to influence content 70.9 56 3.7 7.49
Attempt to kill story 37.2 29 0.7 1.67
Economic Pressure
Threat to withdraw advertising 80.0 64 2.2 3.01
withdrawal of advertising 78.2 61 1.0 1.38
Acquiescence
Has any advertiser succeeded in influencing news or features in your newspaper?
23.4 18 1.9 1.87
Our newspaper seldom runs stories which our advertisers would find critical or harmful.
19.8 16 — —
† Percentages and frequencies in table reflect respondents who answered “Yes” or “Agree.”
TABLE3Personal Ethical norms for Advertiser Relations†
validpercent Frequency
It’s appropriate for an ad director …
… to ask an editor to have lunch with an advertiser? 37.0 30
… to deliver personally a press release from the advertiser to the editor?
64.2 52
… to ask the editor to consider using advertisers as sources for stories?
38.3 31
… to ask the editor to give advertisers preference over non-advertisers in stories?
8.6 7
… to ask the editor to write a story about an advertiser? 20.0 16
… to ask the editor to avoid writing anything negative about advertisers?
0.0 0
… to ask to see any story that mentions an advertiser? 3.7 3.7
† Percentages and frequencies in table reflect respondents who answered “Yes.”
september 2011 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH 545
ADvERTIsER PREssuRE AnD nEwsPAPERs
The biggest taboo seemed to be asking the
editor to avoid negative reporting about
advertisers. No respondent considered it
appropriate.
TheEffectofCirculationSizeonAdvertiserPressureThe first hypothesis (H1) suggested that
smaller newspapers were more likely
to be subject to advertiser pressure than
larger ones. A Z-test of proportions indi-
cated there was limited support for the
hypothesized relationship (See Table 4).
The only variable that might be related
to circulation size was threats of advertis-
ing withdrawal (73.7 percent of the large
newspaper respondents reporting threat
vs. 95.7 percent of small newspapers)
as indicated by a Z value of 2.013. Thus,
there was only partial support for the
hypothesis.
According to the second hypothesis
(H2), smaller newspapers were more
prone to acquiescing to advertiser pres-
sure. There was some support for this
hypothesis (See the bottom part of
Table 4). Direct acquiescence was sig-
nificantly related to circulation size for
the self-censorship outcome of “seldom
running stories advertisers would find
critical or harmful” (39.1 percent of small
newspapers reported self censorship
vs. 12.1 percent of large newspapers, Z
value = 2.449), though circulation size was
not related to advertiser’s perceived suc-
cess in influencing news coverage. Thus,
there again was only partial support for
H2.
PredictorsofPersonalEthicalnorms:EmployeePositionandCirculationSizeThe third hypothesis (H3) predicted that
advertising directors were more lenient in
their approach to advertisers than editors
and the authors’ data shows strong sup-
port for that prediction.
All interpretable significance tests
showed a difference between advertising
directors and editors (See Table 5). Adver-
tising directors were more likely to think
that it is acceptable:
• to ask the editor to have lunch with the
advertiser (ad directors: 71.4 percent
vs. editors: 25.0 percent; Z value = 3.53,
df = 1, p < 0.05);
• to deliver a press release personally
from advertiser to editor (ad directors:
90.5 percent vs. editors: 55.0 percent;
Z value = 2.654, df = 1, p < 0.05);
• to consider using advertisers as sources
for stories (ad directors: 81.0 percent vs.
editors: 23.3 percent; Z value = 4.415,
df = 1, p < 0.05); and
• to ask the editor to write a story about
an advertiser (ad directors: 42.9 percent
vs. editors: 11.9 percent; Z value = 2.771,
df = 1, p < 0.05).
The rest of the differences could be
interpreted only qualitatively owing to the
low cell counts; all but one relationship
(one item showing zero variance), how-
ever, were in the expected direction. H3 is
accepted.
The authors also hypothesized (H4) that
employees of small newspapers (both edi-
tors and advertising directors) were more
permissive in their personal ethical norms
prescribing normative behaviors with
advertisers than large ones. And there was
limited support for the hypothesis (See
Table 6).
There were two items that were related
to employee position; employees of
small newspapers thought it was more
acceptable to consider using advertisers
as sources for stories than large newspa-
per employees (small: 60.9 percent vs.
large: 29.3 percent; Z value = 2.382, df = 1,
p < 0.05) and also to ask the editor to write
a story about an advertiser (small: 39.1
TABLE4newspaper circulation size as an Indicator of Advertiser Pressure Outcomes†
Largenewspapers(%)(n =58)
Smallnewspapers(%)(n =23) Zvalue
Outcome variable
Attempt to influence story selection 58.6 (34) 78.3 (18) 1.46
Attempt to influence content 71.9 (41) 68.2 (15) 0.214
Attempt to kill story 41.8 (23) 26.1 (6) 0.892
Threat to withdraw advertising 73.7 (42) 95.7 (22) 2.013*
withdrawal of advertising 74.5 (41) 87.0 (20) 1.245
Has any advertiser succeeded in influencing news or features in your newspaper?
20.4 (11) 30.4 (7) 0.822
Our newspaper seldom runs stories which our advertisers would find critical or harmful.
12.1 (7) 39.1 (9) 2.449*
* p < 0.05† Percentages and frequencies in table reflect respondents who answered “Yes” or “Agree.” Percentages are within-group. Within-group frequencies are in parentheses.
546 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH september 2011
ADvERTIsER PREssuRE AnD nEwsPAPERs
percent vs. large: 12.3 percent; Z value =
2.449, df = 1, p < 0.05).
Other aspects of the personal ethi-
cal norms concept were independent
of newspaper size, including the rela-
tionships that can be interpreted only
qualitatively. Thus, H4 had only limited
support.
To test the final two hypotheses (H5
and H6), the authors created scales for
influence attempts, economic pressure,
acquiescence, and personal ethical norms.
Most scales reached an acceptable level of
reliability (influence attempts, α = 0.75;
economic pressure, α = 0.76; personal
ethical norms, α = 0.62). Acquiescence to
overt pressure and self-censorship had
to be kept separate because of low scale
TABLE5Employee Position as an Indicator of Personal Policies for Advertiser Relations†
Editors(%)(n =60)
AdvertisingDirectors(%)(n =21) Zvalue
Outcome variable
It’s appropriate for an ad director …
… to ask an editor to have lunch with an advertiser? 25.0 (15) 71.4 (15) 3.53*
… to deliver personally a press release from the advertiser to the editor? 55.0 (33) 90.5 (19) 2.654*
… to ask the editor to consider using advertisers as sources for stories? 23.3 (14) 81.0 (17) 4.415*
… to ask the editor to give advertisers preference over nonadvertisers in stories? 5.0 (3) 19.0 (4) —‡
… to ask the editor to write a story about an advertiser? 11.9 (7) 42.9 (9) 2.771*
… to ask the editor to avoid writing anything negative about advertisers? 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0) —‡
… to ask to see any story that mentions an advertiser? 1.7 (1) 9.5 (2) —‡
*p < 0.05† Percentages and frequencies in table reflect respondents who answered “Yes.” Percentages are within-group. Within-group frequencies are in parentheses. All tests have 1 degree of freedom.‡ The Z statistic cannot be interpreted because cells have counts of less than 5.
TABLE6newspaper circulation size as an Indicator of Personal Policies for Advertiser Relations†
Largenewspapers(%)(n =58)
Smallnewspapers(%)(n =23) Zvalue
Outcome variable
It’s appropriate for an ad director …
… to ask an editor to have lunch with an advertiser? 31.0 (18) 52.2 (12) 1.521
… to deliver personally a press release from the advertiser to the editor? 58.6 (34) 78.3 (18) 1.406
… to ask the editor to consider using advertisers as sources for stories? 29.3 (17) 60.9 (14) 2.382*
… to ask the editor to give advertisers preference over nonadvertisers in stories? 3.4 (2) 21.7 (5) —‡
… to ask the editor to write a story about an advertiser? 12.3 (7) 39.1 (9) 2.449*
… to ask the editor to avoid writing anything negative about advertisers? 0.0 (0) 0.0 (0) —‡
… to ask to see any story that mentions an advertiser? 3.4 (2) 4.3 (1) —‡
*p < 0.05† Percentages and frequencies in table reflect respondents who answered “Yes.” Percentages are within-group. Within-group frequencies are in parentheses. All tests have 1 degree of freedom.‡ The Z statistic cannot be interpreted because cells have counts of less than 5.
september 2011 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH 547
ADvERTIsER PREssuRE AnD nEwsPAPERs
reliability. Pearson correlations were cal-
culated to test the hypotheses.
The analyses yielded mixed support
for H5. There was a significant correla-
tion between economic pressure and per-
sonal policy permissiveness (r = 0.309, p
< 0.05), but influence attempts were not
related to personal ethical norms. Finally,
H6 suggested that the more permissive
newspaper workers are, the more likely
advertisers will be successful with their
influence attempts. The hypothesis was
rejected; neither success of overt attempts,
nor the degree of self-censorship is related
to personal policy permissiveness.
SUMMARY,DISCUSSIOn,AnDIMPLICATIOnSFrom the results, the following conclu-
sions can be drawn:
• Advertiser pressure is widespread in
the newspaper business; despite eco-
nomic threats to withdraw advertising,
however, the extent and frequency of
advertisers succeeding with their influ-
ence attempts is relatively low.
• Smaller newspapers do not differ
greatly from their larger counterparts
with regard to any aspects of advertiser
pressure.
• Advertising directors are more permis-
sive in their personal ethical norms
for handling advertiser pressure than
editors.
• Employees of small newspapers are not
much more permissive in their personal
ethical norms than those of large papers.
• The more economic pressure a news-
paper receives (but not other forms of
pressure), the more likely it is that the
employees will have more permissive
ethical norms for handling pressures.
Overall, these findings are in line with
previous studies; advertiser pressure is
widespread, but some of its forms are
more likely to occur than others. In accord-
ance with the Soley and Craig (1992)
study, influence attempts on content and
selection are more likely than attempts
to kill stories. Similarly, advertisers do
not always succeed with their influence
attempts; in fact, more often than not, they
fail. Soley and Craig’s finding that adver-
tiser pressure is to some extent independ-
ent of circulation size also is replicated by
the present study.
The authors’ data showed decreased
levels of advertiser pressure (with the
exception of one variable) when compared
to the 1992 numbers. Overall, newspapers
reported less pressure in the current study
than their counterparts did nearly two
decades ago, with an average negative dif-
ference of 15.7 percent. The largest drop
was in overt attempts to kill stories (34.2
percent). Self-censorship was the only var-
iable that shows a higher value compared
to the 1992 data (a 4.8-percent increase).
All personal policy permissiveness
scores were lower in the present study
than what Howland (1989) reported 21
years ago (an 18-percent decrease). It is
important to note, however, that the Folio
study was conducted in the context of
magazines, which are usually considered
more prone to advertiser pressure than
newspapers (Soley, 2002). Nevertheless,
the negative difference offers further sup-
port for the conclusion that advertiser
pressure is decreasing.
This decrease in advertiser pressure
might seem counterintuitive, especially
when one considers anecdotal sources
suggesting an actual increase (Ives, 2010;
Sanders and Halliday, 2005; Sutel, 2005).
Similarly, the advertising industry’s
increasing willingness to try to merge
advertising and editorial content through
advertorials, product placements, branded
entertainment, and other forms of cross-
over would suggest a contradictory pre-
diction (Atkinson, 2004; Donaton, 2004;
Fine, 2004; Gorman, 2010).
There are a number of possible reasons
why the authors have found these some-
what surprising results. One possibility is
that advertiser pressure truly decreased,
perhaps because newspapers have real-
ized (and have also made their advertisers
understand) that, even if in the short run
it pays to allow some confluence of adver-
tising and editorial content, the long-term
interest of the newspaper industry is edi-
torial integrity.
It is also possible that advertisers have
become subtler in their influence attempts
(this may be supported by the finding that
there is a large drop in overt attempts to
kill stories) and instead they chose to let
the newspapers censor themselves. This
possibility is corroborated by the fact that
self-censorship was the only measure
that increased compared to the 1992 data.
Reported self-censorship, however, still
was much lower (19.8 percent) than other
measures of advertiser pressure.
Finally, it is also possible that news
people have become more cautious when
discussing advertiser pressure. Moreover,
as it is socially undesirable to admit to
what traditionally is considered as some-
thing opposing fundamental advertising
and media ethics, they paint a rosier pic-
ture than what reality is like. Although
this explanation is possible, the fact that
Smaller newspapers do not differ greatly
from their larger counterparts with regard
to any aspects of advertiser pressure.
548 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH september 2011
ADvERTIsER PREssuRE AnD nEwsPAPERs
the authors granted complete anonymity
should have reduced that social desirabil-
ity bias, if not eradicated it altogether.
IMPLICATIOnSFORPRACTICEThe implications of this study for media
and advertising are far-reaching. Wide-
spread advertiser pressure—and even
a limited extent of acquiescence to such
pressures—has serious ethical conse-
quences for newspapers.
Journalism’s special claim for elevated,
professional status hinges on the idea of
objective information dissemination and
the altruistic ideal of serving the pub-
lic’s right to know. If this ideal were to be
curtailed by economic interests beyond
acceptable ethical standards, the newspa-
per industry would have to face a loss of
its special status.
How managers at newspapers deal with
advertising pressure, however, is much
more than an ethical issue. Advertisers’
controversial requests also have economic
ramifications for the future of newspapers,
both directly and indirectly.
If newspapers can sell their advertising
space only by also selling their editorial
content to a certain extent, it evidently leads
to the devaluation of their primary com-
modity. It is an ethical concern for newspa-
pers to preserve not only the integrity of the
editorial content but economic self-interest.
Further, the perception that a newspa-
per is biased in favor of certain advertis-
ers—or that it has “sold out” to advertisers
in general—very quickly can undermine
its reputation among its primary consum-
ers—the reading public. Loss in credibility
and a negative image, in turn, may lead
to diminished readership and eventually
advertising revenue losses. It is the news-
papers’ self-interest to stop the downward
spiral and preserve editorial integrity,
even if it means stiffer resistance to adver-
tising pressure (Gorman, 2010).
One aspect of the successful manage-
ment of advertiser pressure is the devel-
opment of better corporate-, “meso-level”
ethical norms and matching ethical cli-
mate (Brinkmann, 2002; Victor and Cul-
len, 1988). And, in fact, there seems to be
a wide disagreement between editors and
advertising directors about what is sub-
jectively acceptable when interacting with
advertisers and advertising pressure.
Closing the gap between the newsroom
and the advertising department, in this
sense, may be a step forward. Making
the personal ethical norms explicit can
clarify what is acceptable. Clear and com-
mon understanding of advertiser pressure
guidelines within newspapers or other
media organizations can make resistance
against ethically questionable advertiser
requests easier. Although explicit poli-
cies, in themselves, are not sufficient—as
evidence shows, individuals are far too
willing to violate company policy when
incentives are present (Beltramini, 1986)—
they can be a way forward.
The current study also has implications
for advertisers and advertising agencies.
Although merging editorial and advertis-
ing content has significant appeal for an
advertising industry haunted by decreas-
ing advertising effectiveness, consumer
cynicism, advertising avoidance, and
media fragmentation, advocates of blur-
ring editorial and advertising content
need to realize that serious ethical issues
are also involved in these practices.
It is in the advertising industry’s self-
interest to clarify these issues, and flesh
out under what specific conditions it is
acceptable to move into the content or,
conversely, when it might be deceptive for
the consumer.
A crucial distinction might lie, for
instance, between entertainment (fictional)
and editorial (nonfictional) media content
and, in the case of inherently nonfictional
newspapers, between “hard” news and
“lighter” feature stories.
Claims about featured or “embedded”
products and/or marketers are of a dif-
ferent sort in each media case. “Prod-
uct placement in print” (Atkinson, 1994;
Fine, 2004)—if print means news media
allegedly reporting objective evaluations
of products and services (featured)—is
different from product placement in fic-
tional/entertainment contexts (embedded
or placed); and the expectations of objec-
tivity might even differ in the case of hard
news versus features.
The advertising industry must develop
specific guidelines—much more detailed
than the foregoing distinctions—in coop-
eration with the various media forms to
avoid the specter of an entire new species
of commercial manipulation.
In short, advertiser pressure is no longer
an ethical issue for only the media but for
the advertising industry as well.
FUTURERESEARCHDIRECTIOnSOne potential future research direction
could clarify hypothesized differences
between media in terms of the extent and
frequency of advertiser pressure: the con-
tention that magazines are more prone to
advertiser pressure and especially acqui-
escence should be tested (Zachary, 1992).
Previous academic studies of advertiser
pressure on television showed that the
phenomenon was less common than it
was in print; the use of different question-
naire items, however, makes direct com-
parisons difficult.
Soley’s replication (1997) comes clos-
est to being the basis for true comparison
between TV and print. As that study was
published in a non-peer-reviewed outlet,
however, and there was minimal meth-
odological information offered, reaching
solid conclusions from that study is diffi-
cult. To make meaningful inter-media com-
september 2011 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH 549
ADvERTIsER PREssuRE AnD nEwsPAPERs
parisons possible, more research is needed
about pressures on magazine and TV.
The other side of advertiser pressure—
the advertisers themselves—also could be
a good source of information for future
research. In particular, details about pres-
sure tactics could be investigated. This
information would be especially useful as
most of what we know about advertiser
pressure is coming from media workers.
Although some forms of advertiser pres-
sure might be perceived by advertisers as
controversial—and subject to social-desir-
ability biases—advertisers can be quite
open about some other variants.
For instance, anecdotal sources suggest
that “advance-warning ethical norms”—
guidelines requiring media to notify
advertisers in advance of controversial
stories to be published in the medium the
advertisers buy space in—is one variety
that advertisers are receptive to (Gorman,
2010; Ives, 2010; Sanders and Halliday,
2005; Sutel, 2005). The study of advertiser
pressure from the advertisers’ perspec-
tive could complement the existing direct
knowledge about advertiser pressure,
information that exclusively is based on
surveys of media workers.
All of these research issues should be
studied cross-culturally and in the con-
text of American media. It is reasonable to
speculate that media in different countries
are pressured by advertisers, though such
actions and outcomes are surely affected
by specific political, cultural, and eco-
nomic conditions of indigenous market-
ing/media systems.
Comparative research is needed to doc-
ument the nature, extent, and frequency of
advertiser pressure on media around the
world.
GerGeLy nyiLasy is lecturer at the department of marketing
and management at the university of Melbourne in
Australia. His main research interests are practitioner
cognition and professionalism in marketing and
advertising, advertising effects, market research
methods, and ethical issues. His research has appeared
in the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising
Research, International Journal of Advertising, and
Admap. Before reentering the academic world, Gergely
was a planner at JwT, new york and head of R&D at Hall
& Partners, new york.
Leonard n. reid is professor of advertising at the
university of Georgia. He is a former editor of the Journal
of Advertising and is a Fellow of the American Academy
of Advertising. His most recent research has focused on
trust in advertising, practitioners’ theories of advertising,
and pharmaceutical advertising. His research has
appeared in the Journal of Advertising, International
Journal of Advertising, Journal of Current Issues and
Research in Advertising, and Journal of Advertising
Research.
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