Ad-edit guidelines now have magazine industry seal of approval

The Canadian Society of Magazine Editors (CSME) a number of years ago drew up a set of guidelines for the relationship between advertising and editorial pages in Canadian magazines. It was a wonderful initiative by a relatively small organization.

In an effort to have an even broader industry consensus, a panel of people from the editorial, advertising and publishing sides have spent the past year overhauling and updating the guidelines. Here is the text of the new guidelines.

Demands from advertisers have evolved substantially and it was felt that the industry needed something it could point-- and subscribe -- to in questionable cases. (Disclosure: I sat on the panel that drew up the awards and I voted to accept them.)

The draft guidelines have now been endorsed by Magazines Canada's board of directors, and have already been agreed to by the CSME board and the board of the National Magazine Awards Foundation. Mark Jamison, the CEO of Magazines Canada said:

These guidelines are meant to be used as a tool to help our magazines gauge that difficult balance and to help our ad sales professionals and their clients work in a medium where that proverbial separation of church and state can — and does — work to the advantage of readers and advertisers.

Unlike the American Society of Magazine Editors guidelines, there is no sanction for magazines that ignore the Canadian guidelines (ASME can -- but almost never does -- ban an offending magazine from entering their awards program). But we can hope that moral suasion will do the trick. I have never met a publisher who said he wanted to cashier the editorial integrity of his magazine; with this document, he/she can now refer an advertiser to an industry consensus about what we will and won't do.