On Monday, March 20, the New York Times included a full-color advertising insert with a picture of the Nile at sunset and a large caption reading, Sudan: The Peace dividendProsperity could lie ahead after years of conflict.
What followed was eight pages of newspaper-like stories that extolled the Sudanese economy. Most of the stories included interviews with high government officials. Ministers are frustrated that coverage of Sudan in the international media has focused almost exclusively on the fighting between rebels and Arab militias in the western province of Darfur, read the lead article. Beyond the headlines, there is genuine optimism about the prospects for Sudan's future.
But this advertisement appeared at the very moment that the United States government was reaffirming that genocide was indeed taking place in Sudan's western province of Darfurand that New York Times reporters and columnists were continuing their relentless reporting and criticism of what many are calling a holocaust.
After the advertisement was published, human rights activists began to question the insert and its publication. What exactly was the Sudanese government trying to accomplish with such seemingly blatant propaganda? What is Summit Communications, the company that had produced not just this insert, but several others advertising other countries in the weeks prior? And why had the Times decided to publish an advertisement for Sudan, after the front pages of the newspaper had included so much negative information about a nation that had descended into anarchy?
I think this was a terrible moral mistake, said Eric Reeves, a Smith College professor who has waged a personal campaign to stop the genocide in Darfur. Would theyreferring to the editors of the Timeshave accepted ads from Germany in the wake of Kristallnacht? Obviously not. There is some threshold in which a newspaper must make decisions.
Money wins internal debate at Times
According to Allan Siegal, the standards editor at the Times, there was some debate over the publication of the insert, though he didn't take part in it. Beyond the meeting, Siegal said that there were very specific policies regulating advertorials such as the Sudan insert. Regulations include and Advertising Supplement disclaimer on every page and a different typeface for the articles, Siegal wrote in an e-mail.
Siegal was also quick to explain that news and ads occupy opposite sides of a church-state wall. Newsroom editors don't approve or disapprove advertising, just as ad sales people don't pass upon the news content.
Steph Jesperson, who attended the meeting over the Sudan insert as the director of advertising acceptability for the Times, declined to comment, referring questions to a Times spokeswoman. The spokeswoman, Catherine J. Mathis, wrote in an e-mail, The Times has vigorously reported on the Sudan and our editorials have condemned the actions the Sudanese government has taken against its citizens. We accepted this special advertising section, however, in our strong belief that all pages of the papernews, editorial and advertisingmust remain open to the free flow of ideas. In accepting it, we do not endorse the politics, trade practices or actions of the country or the character of its leaders.
John Prendergast, a Sudan activist for the International Crisis Group (ICG), responded angrily, It's one thing to allow for different views to be aired. But to take money for an ad for three pages lined up against an occasional article or op-ed seems like a capitulation to commercial needs.
What price genocide? About $1 million
The Times did take a significant amount of money for the ad. The New York Daily News reported that the insert cost $929,000, but Mathis denied this figure. In 2003, however, Summit Communications, the advertising agency involved, struggled with the government of Madagascar to receive a $105,000 fee for a similar insert. Prices have risen considerably since then, so it seems safe to say that hundreds of thousands are involved.
This represents blood money, wrote Nicholas Kristof in a statement released last week, after many readers and reporters asked for the Times columnist's reaction to the Sudan story. It tarnishes a newspaper I love. But Kristof refuted the argument that publishing the insert made the Times complicit in genocide.
If this supplement were a racist tract saying that all Zaghawa tribe members are scum and should die, wrote Kristof, that would be so offensive that I would agree that it should be blocked. On the other hand, this advertising isn't racist; this is just pabulum.
So why would Sudan spend over a million dollars to publish such pabulum? The average reader, knowing the situation in Darfur, would probably be put off by puff pieces that started with Estimates of how much oil lies beneath Sudan's desert sands vary from 3 billion barrels to 10 billion, and then complain that Chevron might well be interested in returning to Sudan, but there is a major obstacle: the U.S. government ban on investment in the country, introduced in 1997, still remains in force.
Eric Reeves, the anti-genocide activist, said that the Sudanese government believes in incremental victories, and was probably not hoping for a huge shift in public opinion with the advertisement. They know the vast majority of people will immediately see it's propaganda. If they persuade even a few people that the Sudan is being misrepresented, that it's a good investment opportunity, maybe that will result in the White House or Congress being lobbied.
An uphill battle for respectability
So far, such lobbying is almost unheard of, said Ted Dagne, a Sudan expert at the Congressional Research Service. The recent house version of the Darfur Accountability Act adds more sanctions, said Dagne. I have not heard from anybody other than the government of the Sudan that they would like the sanctions to be dropped.
Sudan has also mounted a considerable smear campaign against prominent activists on the Darfur issue, said both Reeves and John Prendergast. Reeves said that one Sudan front-group published a personal attack that was sent to every faculty member at his university, as well as many students and alumni.
They're attempting to smear anyone who is opposed to them, said Prendergast.
The advertising insert is much more innocuous, compared to that campaign. At the center of the advertising controversy is Summit Communications, the firm that spent a year putting together the Sudan insert.
Summit Communications is a public-relations company based in New York (although registered as a corporation in Europe) that publishes advertorials through an exclusive relationship with the New York Times and promises prospective countries the opportunity to provide greater input and review of our reports' content in conveying their message to the influential readership of The New York Times.
Summit Communications appears to approach its clients at the very height of government. Although it had published ad inserts for Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the week before the Sudan insert, the press agents at embassies for both countries had never heard of the inserts. Neither, for that matter, had the office of the ambassador at the Sudanese embassy.
We are independent of any government agency direct or indirect, wrote Summit Communications in an unsigned e-mail, the only way they would agree to communicate. Our selection of countries is based on more than 10 years of experience and our own international knowledge. Such knowledge has enabled Summit Communications to advertise for such countries as Libya, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
Insert's writers' access to high officials
The inserts themselves rely almost completely on interviews with high government officials. Summit Communications' Web site even includes video interviews with Sudan's vice president, Ali Mohammed Taha, as well as an interview with Joseph Kabila, the president of the DRC. That the embassies of three countries contacted about Summit CommunicationsRwanda, Madagascar, and Sudanknew nothing about the company suggests its relationships are at the very highest levels of African regimes.
Vice President Taha, who appeared frequently in the advertising insert as well as in the online video interview, is reportedly under investigation by the International Criminal Court for connection to war crimes in Darfur. Meanwhile the situation in Darfur itself, said Eric Reeves, is only getting worse.
We have now entered what may be the greatest season of death in Sudan for the last 20 years. Four hundred thousand-plus people have died in Darfur. That excludes the Nuba mountains, all other regions suffering at Khartoum's hands, said Reeves.
When things are worst, you say the most outlandish things to lure investors.
