Cover story: how Metro will sell anything

Thanks to veteran freelancer David Hayes for his post on the Toronto freelance editors and writers listserv about the recent issue of Metro, the free commuter daily that is distributed in Toronto (and elsewhere). As Hayes says in his message to fellow freelancers: "Sell-outs don’t get much more blatant than this."

In a world where everything seems to be for sale, a publication's integrity is simply a commodity, apparently. An underwear company can buy the front page position on the assumption that it is a "wrap" and therefore not the "real" front page. However, by putting the publication's logo prominently on the ad, Metro is essentially saying that this publication is all about the advertiser's, rather than the reader's, needs.

Ads have crept onto the front pages of newspapers more and more, mostly in the form of "zippers" across the bottom and "ears" up around the logo, although at least some expectation is that the readers will know what is paid advertising and what is news.

Had Metro been a magazine, which it's not, it would have been flagrantly in contravention of the (albeit voluntary) ad:edit guidelines published by the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors and Magazines Canada. As it is, it should simply be ashamed of itself for not only not observing the line between ads and editorial, but for having erased it altogether.