In the news: Political advertising in an election year presents publishers with unique opportunities -- and unique headaches.

The election season brings with it unique advertising challenges for publishers. Summing up the problem, Max Willens of Digiday.com reports: “Revenue executives at five different publishers said the processes they put in place to evaluate the political campaign ads that their sites take programmatically, such as mandatory creative review, are being thwarted by ad buyers who are mis-classifying or mislabeling the ads, or obscuring the domains in ways that make it hard to block them.” Compounding the problem is the fact that publishers often don’t realize problematic ad content is displaying on their sites until readers raise the red flag.

While a few major publishers such as Reuters and Bloomberg decline political ads, most publishers can’t do without the infusion of ad cash the election cycle brings, comments Willen -- particularly given Covid-related losses this year. Read more here.

Also Notable:

Evaluating the Facebook Journalism Project’s Impact

In a piece published last week, Emilie Lutostanski, Lindsey Leisher Estes, and Camryn Allen of LocalMedia.org examine how news publishers across America have put grant money from a Facebook initiative to use in their newsrooms. They report that “the Facebook Journalism Project awarded $10.3 million to 144 local U.S. newsrooms in May as part of its Covid-19 Local News Relief Fund Grant Program.” Facebook intended the program to help local news organizations survive the pandemic. Lutostanski, Estes, and Allen crunch the numbers and highlight some of the initiative’s greatest success stories here.

One Newsroom’s Reckoning with Race

This week, in a CJR.org piece, Marion Renault dives deep into the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch’s ongoing reckoning with racial imparity in its newsroom. The newspaper has long been criticized not only for its mostly white newsroom and editorial board, but also for publishing content that either fails to serve its readers of color or, worse, stereotypes them. The paper, as part of a larger initiative by parent company Gannett to create parity in its newsrooms within five years, is taking preliminary steps to rectify this systemic problem. But progress may not come fast enough for Columbus residents who have for years voiced concerns that their city newspaper does not serve them. Read more here.

New York Times Abandons Cookies

Last week, Kayleigh Barber of Digiday.com discussed the New York Times’ recent decision to stop using cookies on its websites. “When the coronavirus crisis laid into the economy, the publisher saw its ad sales plunge 44%, according to the company’s second quarter earnings call in July,” Barber reports. “In the past year, the Times eliminated open programmatic from its app.... Not only were they unappealing visually, but they also caused technical delays and hiccups.” Read more here.

Are Paid Subscriptions the Way to Go?

Tech company Zuora has published its 2020 subscription billing data. Rick Edmonds of Poynter.org says that it’s a “good news/bad news mix for the publishing segment. Bottom line: Subscription volume continues to grow even during the pandemic, but ads (as measured by other sources) are sinking even faster than they were before and will continue to do so.” The report recommends that publishers turn to digital subscription revenue to make up the shortfall. Read more about the report and its findings here.

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