Washington Post October 17, 2005 Page C01
The ad submitted to the Detroit News was not exactly subtle.
Toyota and Hyundai operate "in countries that sponsor terrorism," it said, while General Motors does not.
Jim Doyle of the Level Field Institute, funded by retirees and suppliers of the Big Three automakers, says the News questioned the assertion, which he explained was based on State Department findings about Sudan and Iran. Then a News advertising executive told him the ad was being rejected because her bosses had decided it was "inflammatory to our advertisers." Says Doyle: "I didn't expect to get censored in Detroit."
The same ad, by the way, has run in Roll Call and been accepted by The Washington Post for this week.
So was the News protecting its automobile advertisers? Henry Ford, the paper's vice president for marketing, says he has "no comment other than it was a simple business decision."