ONE MORE POST ABOUT THIS PHONY, TRUMPED-UP AD "SCANDAL"

ABC's Jake Tapper reported this morning:

...New York Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis ... points out that on September 11, 2007, "we published a full-page advertisement from Freedom'sWatch.org, an organization whose view is opposite of MoveOn.org."

Freedom's Watch spokesman Matt David, however tells me the group was charged "significantly more" than MoveOn.org for its ad. The organization says it plans to run a response to the MoveOn.org NYT ad in the Times, "and we plan to demand the same ad rate they paid," David says....

There's just one problem with the comparison: I have the two ads in front of me right now, from the dead-tree editions of the 9/10 and 9/11 Times, and the MoveOn ad is black and white, while the Freedom's Watch is four-color.

Big, big difference.

Actually, most of the Freedom's Watch is ad is monochrome -- but the group's logo in the lower right corner includes a red, white and blue flag and an eagle with a yellow beak. Also, on the map of the world that runs across the top half of the ad, the land is blue. That means the whole ad had to be produced as if it were in blazing Technicolor -- and had to be priced accordingly.

I can't tell you for certain what the price difference is, but I did find this Google Answers page from 2005, and the response seems to be from someone who knows what he/she is talking about (although the dollar figures seem quite out of date):

Subject: Re: WHAT DOES A FULL PAGE AD COST IN THE NY TIMES?
Answered By: siliconsamurai-ga on 28 Jan 2005 11:08 PST

...The column inch rate for weekday full-page display in the city edition was recently $191 (full-page rate discount included) per column inch so a full page would probably cost about $24,000 or about 2 cents per print copy circulated.

This is the rate for a full-page, camera-ready black and white page. Color is usually only quoted directly but camera-ready four color would probably run about 45 percent higher....

(Emphasis added.)

So of course the damn Freedom's Watch ad cost more.