Why run political ads on STLtoday.com?
Got this question by e-mail from a reader:
I noticed that STLtoday.com was running a political ad for Charlie Dooley. I understand you need advertising dollars, but running political ads seems wrong. I thought STLtoday.com was supposed to be a source of news and therefore should be impartial. I don’t recall seeing political ads in the actual newspaper (the Editorial page notwithstanding). How do you justify this?
Indeed, the reader is correct. We have a banner ad for Charlie Dooley, Democratic candidate for St. Louis County executive (and the incumbent), running on STLtoday.com. I just saw it a moment ago on the top of the front page of our News section — in the spot usually reserved for banner ads on STLtoday.com.
STLtoday is, also, a source of news and we agree that our aim in our news coverage is to be impartial. It is not uncommon at all for web sites and newspapers to run political advertising. Many do. We believe readers understand that there is a difference between news coverage and advertising. We believe they make a distinction between a paid partisan message and the independent journalism that we produce.
I would also point out that we do indeed run political advertising in the newspaper. In today’s paper, for example, on page A10, opponents of Amendment 2 have placed a half-page ad. There is another on page C3. In fact, the Voters Guide that ran in today’s paper is covered with political advertising — side by side with the editorial content.
Online, we are also sensitive to how certain kinds of advertising looks when juxtaposed with certain categories of news content and we try to keep that in mind in our advertising policies. For example, our policy prevents political advertising from running in the Politics section of STLtoday.com, or on the home page, or in the Political Fix blog written by the reporters who cover politics.
This is what the rest of our advertising guidelines say about political advertising:
* All Political/Advocacy advertising is PIA (Paid In Advance).
* All Political/Advocacy advertising must identify the paid sponsor in every frame.
* Political/Advocacy advertising that solicits funds must disclose that contributions are not deductible for income tax purposes, when applicable.
* A single Political/Advocacy advertiser may buy all of the available ad impressions for a single position, but may not buy all of the available ad impressions for all ad positions on a page.
* STLtoday.com may, in its sole discretion, edit, alter, omit, reject or cancel at any time any of Advertiser’s promotions or advertising.
Thanks for the question.
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Kurt is the director of social media for the Post-Dispatch, where he has worked since August 2002. He's been a journalist since 1982, covering municipal government, courts, education and two hurricanes as a reporter before becoming an editor. 
“STLtoday.com may, in its sole discretion, edit, alter, omit, reject or cancel at any time any of Advertiserâ??s promotions or advertising.”
K-
“Reject,” “omit,” and “cancel” all make sense. “Edit” and “alter” . . . in its sole discretion . . . at any time . . . sounds a bit over the top.
You’re selling an ad in which you reserve the right, for example, to change the name of the candidate or insert the word DON”T before VOTE FOR?
Seems to me that if the ad complies with the other rules, is PIA (love that acronym!), and you accept it for publication, you shouldn’t be able to do anything more to it than cancel it.