Rhapsody in Blue

Must a fan dancer don bra and panties in a newspaper advertisement even though she doffs them in her act? Should a newspaper refuse to accept ads for a controversial bestseller? Could Macy's guarantee to undersell Gimbels on Page 23, while Gimbels guaranteed to beat Macy's on Page 24? Should the new antihistamine drugs be allowed to advertise that they can "cure" colds?

To such knotty but important questions, newspapers have found no absolute answer. Each paper answers them in its own way, and in doing so the U.S. press has gradually evolved a code of ethics covering the ads it prints. By refusing ads they consider fraudulent, misleading, immoral or inflammatory, most metropolitan newspapers have tacitly accepted responsibility for deciding what advertisers may and may not say. And the stronger a newspaper's finances, the firmer its no.

Last week, newspaper "advertising acceptability" departments had more than their quota of headaches. One was Paul Blanshard's bestseller, American Freedom and Catholic Power, which attacks Roman Catholic doctrines and practices. The Chicago Daily News, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Minneapolis Star & Tribune advertising departments had printed ads for the Blanshard book. But the New York Times, which reviewed American Freedom as "news," refused to carry ads for the "controversial" book.

The claims of antihistamine drugs were also a problem (see MEDICINE). In the New York Herald Tribune, readers of the ad columns were told to "Stop Colds Among Your Employees," but in the stricter Times, the same product promised merely to "Help Reduce Absenteeism Due to Colds." In Chicago, the old question of race discrimination in advertising was an issue. Three of the four Chicago dailies still allow "For Colored" in rent ads, to indicate that the advertised apartments or houses are located in the Negro sections of town. The Chicago Tribune, responding to requests, has just banned the race tag from its ads. Newspapers have generally dropped such anti-Semitic phrases as "Restricted" or "Selected Clientele" in their ads, as well as "Gentiles Only," but such euphemisms as "Churches Nearby" still flourish.

Chief Censor. Probably the most influential voice in determining what is acceptable advertising is the New York Times, which has cut the basic pattern for many of its contemporaries. As "chief censor" of the Times for the past 18 years, Joseph W. Gannon, a graduate of Dartmouth and the N. W. Ayer ad agency, sets the standards for the Times--which he calls "the strictest in the field." Last year, redfaced, blue-nosed Censor Gannon and staff reworded, revised or rejected 1,456 ads.

An ad describing underwear as "Naughty--but so nice . . ." read in the Gannonized version: "Paris-inspired--but so nice . . ." When a Manhattan nightclub boasted that it possessed "Fifty of the hottest girls this side of hell," Censor Gannon deftly made it "Fifty of the most alluring maidens this side of paradise."

The Times painted more clothing on Sally Rand, and airbrushed out the bare essentials of a model in a girdle ad. To those who complain that Times ads still show too much bosom, the Times has a stock reply: "Women's attire has come to be so scanty nowadays as to attract less & less attention." Censor Gannon occasionally nods. Once he passed double-meaning ads for Springs Mills's "Springmaid" fabrics (TIME, July 26, 1948). But the best-selling Kinsey report never made Gannon's grade.

No Thieves. In the Times's classified-ad columns--as in most papers--things are almost never "stolen"; they are merely "lost." In controversies about strikes, China Aid, Palestine, etc., the Times generally prints the advertising opinions of all reputable comers.

There are no "matchless, magnificent minks" in the Times; they may be "beautiful," but not "matchless." (But the San Francisco News, like many papers, permits superlatives like "best coffee in the world" on the grounds that these are clearly "editorial opinions.") Macy's prices --like Gimbels--are never "unheard of" in the Times; they are "amazingly low."

Only one unqualified superlative regularly passes the blue pencils of Gannon & Co. In full-page ads in the Times, the Chicago Tribune is permitted to call itself the "World's Greatest Newspaper." Explains Censor Gannon: "The Times can afford to be magnanimous."

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