Friday, April 24, 2015

The Time a Newspaper Stared Down the Country’s Largest Advertiser  - ProPublica

The Time a Newspaper Stared Down the Country’s Largest Advertiser  - ProPublica: "Yet, however modestly they portrayed it, the showdown with General Motors had been a watershed moment for Kilgore and the Journal. Kilgore's deputy wrote that it "firmly established in the public mind, including millions who never had read The Wall Street Journal, and presumably never would, that here was a newspaper of unshakable independence and integrity. GM had done us a priceless favor." David Lilienthal, former Tennessee Valley Authority and Atomic Energy Commission chairman, wrote Kilgore that it was "a classic in the history of newspapering." Author Edward Scharff later concluded that this "new-won reputation was worth inestimably more than the General Motors advertising account." Donald MacDonald, then a junior ad salesman but later head of all sales for the Journal and Dow Jones, summed up the implications simply: "Our future was assured.""



'via Blog this'