WSJ front-page ads elicited eight complaints — six from professors

The decision earlier this year to place ads on the front page of The Wall Street Journal resulted in eight letters to publisher Gordon Crovitz, and six of those were from journalism professors who complained that the space should be reserved for editorial content.

“It is the most expensive real estate,” said Crovitz, speaking Sunday at the fall Society of American Business Editors and Writers conference. “Next year is already sold out.”

Crovitz said the decision to offer the front-page ads come up during discussions last year about the paper’s redesign, which was launched in 2007. He said that the paper can sell a front page ad for one day and receive the equivalent of one year’s pay for a senior reporter at the paper.

Although Journal reporters have complained that the ad takes away space for editorial content, Crovitz said additional space has been added elsewhere in the paper. “We thought we were giving readers equivalent value,” he said.

Crovitz noted that some advertisers may be nervous about purchasing ads on the front page when its likely that the Journal will run an article about the company that is negative. That happened last year when Hewlett-Packard ran ads on the front page on days when the Journal has articles about its pretexting scandal.

“The H-P guys were great,” said Crovitz. “They said, ‘That’s life.'”