
How the New York Times keeps tragedies ad-free - warriorsfan
http://parkerhiggins.net/2015/03/new-york-times-keeps-tragedies-ad-free/
======
universaltest
> it’s almost an acknowledgement that ads are invasive and uncomfortable. They
> cross over into the intolerable range when we’re emotionally vulnerable from
> a tragic story.

Is it really this, or is it that advertisers don't want their brand associated
with negativity in general?

How they're doing it is interesting, but I think the analysis is weird.

~~~
smoe
I worked for the biggest swiss news site, which also had an option to disable
ads for a story in the CMS.

In this case, it wasn't an acknowledgement that ads are invasive and
uncomfortable in general, the problematic ads were those shown based on
keywords of the story. E.G. an advertisement about how safe car X is in a
story about an fatal car accident.

~~~
blowski
I remember a Land Rover advert being shown right next to a story about a
fatality caused by a fault in the very model being advertised. I've also seen
problems with, say, holidays to Paris being advertised next to a story about
the Charlie Hebdo killings.

The problem must be that the highest traffic stories are typically the most
sensitive ones.

~~~
smoe
I see the problem more in the fact, that a lot of publishers try to squeeze
out some ad money from every single blank space still left on the page and
fill it with third party services where they have no control over the actual
booking. It is simply impossible to foresee what inappropriate ads might be
shown if you don't now the pool.

In contrast to the directly sold banners, where the marketing team might just
postpone a whole scheduled campaign for an airline when half the front page is
filled with stories about a plane crash.

Still I think it's impossible to avoid some inappropriate ads at time and one
has to live with it.

------
cantlin
Typically there'll be a CMS flag available to powerful users (editors). That's
how it works at the Guardian.

It sets a boolean (shouldHideAdverts) in our content API[0], which we use in
templates[1] to suppress commercial logic.

There are obvious business reasons for this. It's common for it not to be in
the advertiser or reader's interest to show commercial messages against some
content.

[0]
[http://content.guardianapis.com/world/live/2015/mar/24/germa...](http://content.guardianapis.com/world/live/2015/mar/24/germanwings-
airbus-a320-crashes-in-french-alps-live-updates?show-
fields=shouldHideAdverts&api-key=throwaway-2450987)

[1]
[https://github.com/guardian/frontend/blob/4cb7e07c15a03568c2...](https://github.com/guardian/frontend/blob/4cb7e07c15a03568c20c4d623f5d252bd4d8c315/common/app/views/fragments/contentFooter.scala.html#L10)

~~~
maxerickson
I wonder if the NYT meta header is just a similar flag leaking out, or if it
is something that can be abused client side to never have ads.

It's totally unsurprising that it would be a CMS feature, I'm a little taken
aback each time I see a crass juxtaposition on smaller sites (more out of
surprise at them not doing it than any particular personal sensitivity to it).

~~~
soneil
I took a look at the first result that popped up
([http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/world/europe/germanwings-a...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/world/europe/germanwings-
airbus-crash.html?_r=0)) and interestingly, this ad_sensitivity tag is set to
"tragedy". I'm curious to know what other options there are now - whether this
is boolean, or a sliding scale.

~~~
krishy
The options are:

\- Show ads \- No ads \- Tragedy

~~~
breakingcups
Do you know the difference between tha latter two?

------
albertsun
This is indeed a manual switch in the CMS that human editors decide to turn on
for certain stories.

(Source: I work at the Times)

~~~
aet
It seems that this logic applied well before online. I imagine newspapers
would not place ads next to stories of this type on print either.

------
cstuder
The Failbook page loves to collect examples of inappropriate automated ad
placements:
[http://failblog.cheezburger.com/failbook/tag/juxtaposition](http://failblog.cheezburger.com/failbook/tag/juxtaposition)

~~~
dexterdog
You mean inappropriate automated ad placements mixed heavily with photoshopped
pairings of items that are funny next to each other.

------
VMG
A new avenue for ethical cross-site scripting.

I did not know about this particular keyword sensitivity google mail:
[http://boingboing.net/2009/07/31/how-to-avoid-ads-
in.html](http://boingboing.net/2009/07/31/how-to-avoid-ads-in.html)

Maybe everybody should add "I'm sorry for your loss of ads" to their email
signature?

~~~
bobbykjack
Apparently doesn't work if the words are just in your signature.

~~~
malka
maybe a script that adds it automatically as white on white text ?

------
volaski
It's more that advertisers don't want their brand to be associated with
negative emotion readers get while reading about tragedy.

------
Alex3917
Except for literally two days ago they were advertising Viagra on an article
about gang rape:

[http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/03/23/us/ap-us-
fraterni...](http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/03/23/us/ap-us-fraternity-
rolling-stone.html)

------
notjustanymike
We had this at Newsweek too, and it's not as people friendly as you think.
Disabling ads is about brand-safety. Most brands don't want to be associated
with tragedies, so you disable ads in order to protect your contracts.

Given money or user experience, most publishers will choose money every time.

------
simi_
In case people are wondering, the 150 people dead are from a recent
Germanwings crash.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=germanwings+crash&tbm=nws](https://www.google.com/search?q=germanwings+crash&tbm=nws)

As someone living in Cologne who flies with them frequently... yikes!

~~~
Kliment
It's Germanwings' first accident ever. I also live in Köln and fly with them
frequently, but I'm not particularly concerned. Also, on a totally offtopic
note, want to meet up?

~~~
simi_
We're Lavaboom, we make secure/private email, and have an office in Solution
Space (right across the cathedral), feel free to come meet the (tiny) team. :)

[http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Am+Hof+20-2...](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Am+Hof+20-26%2C+50667+K%C3%B6ln%2C+Deutschland&z=13&layer=t)

~~~
Kliment
I might do that. Does Friday work for you? Email me at kliment@0xfb.com (yes,
that's a zero)

~~~
simi_
We're here every (week) day. :) I'm andrei@lavaboom.com

------
ThomPete
What if you created an advertising platform for NGOs and relief organizations,
research etc. based on relevant tragic events.

Wouldn't that be an ok way of still having advertising but for organizations
that are potentially trying to solve the very problem the tragedy represents?

------
Theodores
This is '9/11 preparedness' to a certain extent. Remember when that happened
how there were no adverts anywhere for a week or so? The music changed too, no
'John Lennon' songs were played for a while.

This does need to be fine grained. Although the UK is adjacent to France and
Germany the current disaster is not nationally significant in the UK in that
there will not be days of mourning, people being quiet for two minutes,
politicians laying wreaths etc. So it is only the readers in France and
Germany that need to be 'spared' adverts on this story, the rest of the world
can have normal ad-based service.

~~~
dfc
No John Lennon songs?

~~~
schoen
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Clear_Channel_memorandum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Clear_Channel_memorandum)

~~~
dfc
There is one John Lennon song out of 165 songs on that list. Are you sure that
is the reference?

~~~
schoen
I suspect so, because the existence of that list got a lot of press at the
time, and I think the presence of "Imagine" on the list got attention in its
own right. So I think this list is likely what people would be thinking of in
that context.

------
nsxwolf
With a manually set flag. This needed an article? I was expecting some deep
learning article about an AI that automatically detects when stories are too
tragic for ads. No. Someone shoots an email to someone else and says "Hey,
make sure you set the no ads flag on this one". Ok.

------
gummywormsyum
Why not solicit ads to donate to nonprofits or relief funds?

That will be a $30,000 consulting fee, thank you.

------
Psion7
So what happens if a user defaults this via a user script to all pages on the
NYT?

------
sz4kerto
On the news site I occasionally read there was an ad of an insurance company
near the article on this tragedy. Not great.

