The year advertisers stop boycotting news

“Restoring digital advertising to quality news publishers is a rare case where companies can do good and do well.”

When I was publisher of The Wall Street Journal, we would give an airline advertiser a free substitute ad in the next issue of the newspaper if its ad happened to run alongside a news story about an airline crash. Airline marketers were happy to continue to support news with their advertising.

Fast forward to today, when the largest category of advertising is digital, with programmatic advertising placed through algorithms increasingly dominant. One of the less well-understood inputs into these algorithms is keyword blocklists. These are lists of words that the ad tech industry uses to exclude advertising from running on particular news stories. Over the years, these lists have ballooned, running well into the thousands of words. As a result, programmatic ads can be excluded from news stories that include words such as “Trump” or “Biden,” as well as “Black,” “Hispanic,” “Asian,” “gay,” or “lesbian.”

The result is that much of the advertising inventory on news sites is deemed brand-unsafe. A significant share of the ad inventory of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times falls into this category. For sites serving Black or gay communities, 70% of the ad inventory can be excluded because so many of their stories include words that keyword blocklists have deemed too risky for ads.

This means companies find themselves effectively boycotting serious news, and disproportionately depriving high-quality news sites that serve minority communities. CMOs don’t mean to boycott journalism, but this is how programmatic advertising now operates. This unintended consequence of keyword blocking is especially ironic at a time when many corporations have publicly pledged to redirect more of their advertising to media serving Black and other underserved communities.

These keyword blocklists cost news sites a key source of revenues that could support newsrooms that badly need the funding.

In contrast, companies routinely find their internet ads running on websites publishing misinformation, healthcare hoaxes, and Russian or Chinese disinformation. My colleagues at NewsGuard, which rates the trustworthiness of news sites, this year worked with media measurement company Comscore to estimate that $2.6 billion worth of online ads from blue-chip companies annually run on sites that advertisers never intended. The problem is that programmatic algorithms don’t differentiate between misinformation sites and quality publishers.

Warren Buffett’s Geico, for example, has been the largest advertiser on Vladimir Putin’s site Sputnik News — a subsidy I’m sure Mr. Buffett does not intend or even know about. NewsGuard found ads from more than 4,000 advertisers running on sites publishing misinformation about Covid-19, its vaccines, and its treatments. NewsGuard now offers advertisers lists of thousands of high-quality news sites, including sites serving minority audiences, so that they can stop using keyword blocklists and instead be confident that their ads are running on quality sites. The billions of dollars now going to propaganda and healthcare hoax sites would be a big help in restoring support for journalism.

An increasing number of advertisers and agencies realize the impact of these blocklists on news publishers. A case study from ad agency IPG found that removing ads from low-quality sites and placing them on high-quality news sites resulted in lower ad rates to the advertiser — with higher clickthrough rates thanks to more engaged audiences. Restoring digital advertising to quality news publishers is a rare case where companies can do good and do well. With corporate social responsibility and ESG standards now so top of mind — along with the need to support the journalism that can strengthen democracies — I’m betting that 2022 will be the year when this happens.

When I was publisher of The Wall Street Journal, we would give an airline advertiser a free substitute ad in the next issue of the newspaper if its ad happened to run alongside a news story about an airline crash. Airline marketers were happy to continue to support news with their advertising.

Fast forward to today, when the largest category of advertising is digital, with programmatic advertising placed through algorithms increasingly dominant. One of the less well-understood inputs into these algorithms is keyword blocklists. These are lists of words that the ad tech industry uses to exclude advertising from running on particular news stories. Over the years, these lists have ballooned, running well into the thousands of words. As a result, programmatic ads can be excluded from news stories that include words such as “Trump” or “Biden,” as well as “Black,” “Hispanic,” “Asian,” “gay,” or “lesbian.”

The result is that much of the advertising inventory on news sites is deemed brand-unsafe. A significant share of the ad inventory of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times falls into this category. For sites serving Black or gay communities, 70% of the ad inventory can be excluded because so many of their stories include words that keyword blocklists have deemed too risky for ads.

This means companies find themselves effectively boycotting serious news, and disproportionately depriving high-quality news sites that serve minority communities. CMOs don’t mean to boycott journalism, but this is how programmatic advertising now operates. This unintended consequence of keyword blocking is especially ironic at a time when many corporations have publicly pledged to redirect more of their advertising to media serving Black and other underserved communities.

These keyword blocklists cost news sites a key source of revenues that could support newsrooms that badly need the funding.

In contrast, companies routinely find their internet ads running on websites publishing misinformation, healthcare hoaxes, and Russian or Chinese disinformation. My colleagues at NewsGuard, which rates the trustworthiness of news sites, this year worked with media measurement company Comscore to estimate that $2.6 billion worth of online ads from blue-chip companies annually run on sites that advertisers never intended. The problem is that programmatic algorithms don’t differentiate between misinformation sites and quality publishers.

Warren Buffett’s Geico, for example, has been the largest advertiser on Vladimir Putin’s site Sputnik News — a subsidy I’m sure Mr. Buffett does not intend or even know about. NewsGuard found ads from more than 4,000 advertisers running on sites publishing misinformation about Covid-19, its vaccines, and its treatments. NewsGuard now offers advertisers lists of thousands of high-quality news sites, including sites serving minority audiences, so that they can stop using keyword blocklists and instead be confident that their ads are running on quality sites. The billions of dollars now going to propaganda and healthcare hoax sites would be a big help in restoring support for journalism.

An increasing number of advertisers and agencies realize the impact of these blocklists on news publishers. A case study from ad agency IPG found that removing ads from low-quality sites and placing them on high-quality news sites resulted in lower ad rates to the advertiser — with higher clickthrough rates thanks to more engaged audiences. Restoring digital advertising to quality news publishers is a rare case where companies can do good and do well. With corporate social responsibility and ESG standards now so top of mind — along with the need to support the journalism that can strengthen democracies — I’m betting that 2022 will be the year when this happens.

AX Mina

Joe Amditis

Anita Varma

A.J. Bauer

Sam Guzik

Gabe Schneider

Cindy Royal

Julia Munslow

Shannon McGregor & Carolyn Schmitt

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

David Skok

Joanne McNeil

John Davidow

James Green

Christoph Mergerson

Anika Anand

Cherian George

Shalabh Upadhyay

Simon Galperin

Gonzalo del Peon

Robert Hernandez

Joni Deutsch

Parker Molloy

Jody Brannon

Amy Schmitz Weiss

Julia Angwin

Kathleen Searles & Rebekah Trumble

Jesse Holcomb

S. Mitra Kalita

Eric Nuzum

Larry Ryckman

Izabella Kaminska

Michael W. Wagner

Kendra Pierre-Louis

Richard Tofel

Laxmi Parthasarathy

Jessica Clark

Sarah Marshall

Burt Herman

Don Day

Cristina Tardáguila

Wilson Liévano

Jim Friedlich

Tamar Charney

Francesco Zaffarano

Whitney Phillips

Mary Walter-Brown

David Cohn

James Salanga

Stefanie Murray

Stephen Fowler

Christina Shih

Simon Allison

j. Siguru Wahutu

Tom Trewinnard

Jonas Kaiser

Catalina Albeanu

Chase Davis

Matt DeRienzo

Sarah Stonbely

Jennifer Brandel

Ståle Grut

Alice Antheaume

Juleyka Lantigua

Mike Rispoli

Moreno Cruz Osório

Zizi Papacharissi

Millie Tran

Ariel Zirulnick

Victor Pickard

Andrew Freedman

Kristen Muller

Brian Moritz

Kerri Hoffman

Rachel Glickhouse

Tony Baranowski

Natalia Viana

Melody Kramer

Joy Mayer

Meena Thiruvengadam

Errin Haines

Gordon Crovitz

Paul Cheung

Joshua P. Darr

Jesenia De Moya Correa

Nikki Usher

Kristen Jeffers

Daniel Eilemberg

Amara Aguilar

Megan McCarthy

Mario García

Candace Amos

Raney Aronson-Rath

Matthew Pressman

Doris Truong

Chicas Poderosas

Matt Karolian

Mandy Jenkins

Anthony Nadler

Jennifer Coogan