My favorite letters start by innocently questioning our position on some issue, the writers seeming genuinely bemused. Then, in a few scant sentences, detecting with a skill that would turn Sherlock Holmes green, they discover the reason we hold such a position is … (dramatic pause) … because of advertisers. They’ve figured us out: We’re against the smoking ban not for the reasons given by myself, or by Mike Clark-Madison in “Austin@Large,” but because we’ve sold out, displaying none of the writer’s heroic nobility. It’s not that we have an honest disagreement on the issues but for reasons far more insidious — we don’t even believe our own arguments. The lure of the green has corrupted us away from the truth. When so confronted, my overwhelming temptation is to acknowledge that we’re just in it for the money, our opinion available to the highest bidder, and glibly go on. But not today.
Publisher Nick Barbaro is the poster child for the financially uninterested. Arguing that he would compromise, or stand by while others did, in a quest to please advertisers is beyond absurd. It has been a long, long time since Nick was asked to sit on a panel at the annual convention of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. The last time, interrupting the intense discussion among the other publishers, he casually offered that it wasn’t that he was concerned over not turning a profit but that he strongly felt that we shouldn’t. Michael Hollett, publisher and editor of Now, Toronto’s weekly, regards the stunned silence that followed as his all-time favorite convention moment. Nick wasn’t kidding, though I’ve managed to move him away from taking too much offense when we do.
This publication is free. We have neither business plan nor profit target. The staff, in every department, is passionately devoted to the Chronicle, striving for quality beyond reason. Editorially, I try to calm them down from offering too much writing (though I’m among the guiltiest parties). But in every way, in every area, there is a commitment to excellence, a determination to do the best job possible. We are proud of this paper because we are of and devoted to its community. Over the years, just about everything we’ve ever done where money was the primary motive has cost us dearly. Most of what we did for love paid off.
Relatively speaking, in terms of market size, the Chronicle is among the most successful weeklies (though not among the most profitable). These days, other papers regularly ask us about how we do things, though at the time we first did most of them they cost more than they earned. Barbaro is a bit of a numbers genius. Over the years, he spent a lot of time pondering minutiae and pissing off staff. Okay, maybe me more than staff. When we needed to raise advertising rates, instead of an across-the-board percentage hike, Nick would work on a more graded scale. This took months, during which we would run out of rate cards, having to make photocopies for new clients. The ad staff hated this, I bitterly complained. But as the cost of advertising rose, we remained affordable for small and new businesses; everyone now asks us how we manage to have so much retail advertising.
The paper was a harrowing financial experience for its first decade. Starting around 1990, we finally began to have some budgetary breathing space, but a few years later things slowed down. Our goal is to have the same number of pages of display advertising and editorial pages. Nick would often increase the size of the paper four, eight, or even 16 pages to accommodate editorial content, resulting in money-losing issues. I went home with near-ulcers, the only editor in the history of weeklies to complain that my publisher was giving me too much space. (Nick’s title is publisher and mine editor, but we actually share responsibilities.)
One time, looking through a stack of weeklies from around the country, I found myself shaking my head at how many carried little editorial beyond glorified listings because of a lack of ads. How could you expect to develop a readership if you offer them nothing to read? I thought. Damn — the son of a bitch was right again!
“Now,” you may be saying, “okay, this Barbaro is a saint, but what about you?” That’s right — after 22 years of my life working on this publication, I’m going to sell out my beliefs for a couple of advertising dollars.
I’d bring up SXSW, where Nick and I are partners with Roland Swenson, the hands-on managing executive, but I recognize that as foolish. I’ve heard people project a single year’s profits at more than SXSW has earned in its 17 years. I’ve sat at so many meetings where if the choice came down to quality or profitability, there was no hesitation. But why bother? So many of you know so much better.
A couple of points for those who find us “a tool for big corporations”:
Mike Clark-Madison and I have come out against the smoking ban, but I really don’t know how the rest of the staff feels. I would never presume to, nor would they have me, speak for them. Invariably, on stated issues there are some who disagree; sometimes many do, and at times most.
Many publications, especially weeklies, have decided not to accept tobacco ads. Others have come out in favor of smoking bans, losing neither tobacco nor club advertising in the process. If, as some argue, everyone knows how bad smoking is, why do you need to police what they read?
There is nothing progressive about supporting any ban on legal personal behavior, including tobacco. Many progressives support such bans, but that doesn’t make them progressive. Many conservatives support Bush’s economic policies, but that doesn’t make them conservative. Restricting other people’s behavior is never progressive.
Nick and I believe you sell advertising space to advertisers and interfere only when it seems unavoidable. Whenever we express this policy, people accuse us of weaseling out, though I’m not sure why. Truth is, controversy over ads has been so very rare here.
In the first year of the Chronicle, Barbaro loved a good four- or five-hour meeting, every day if possible, but at least several times a week. At the time, we were running a small recruitment ad for the National Society for the Advancement of White People, a slightly-smarter-than-your-average-racist racist group. Our argument was that by running the ad, we shined a light on them; by not, we allowed them the cover of darkness. Please do not weigh in on this reasoning; we were so addled in those days, remembering the specifics would drive me to psychosis.
After one long meeting, Nick popped the surprise that the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee was coming to speak to us about that ad. Not exactly a bunch of freethinkers, they knew the “Truth” in the same way so many talk-show-loyal conservatives do now (not opinion, but free-from-evidence Truth — mainstream media is liberal, Iraq was responsible for 9/11, etc.). The connection between cultural stimuli and social response (an area so murky that no science can offer detail beyond speculation) was as clear to them as a neon-lit gas station sign at night. If we ran the ad, otherwise well-meaning people would turn racist and join.
Another time we were chided for running ads for Doc Marten boots, the garb of the neofascist: By running those ads, we were supporting thuggery. One letter writer found a photo of a young girl in an ad to be child pornography, though even the most feminist among us had no idea why or could suggest any response to the writer beyond therapy. In every case, we were accused of placing profit over community.
I don’t smoke, never have, and don’t like cigarette smoke at clubs, but tobacco advertising doesn’t offend me. I also think marijuana, prostitution, and pornography are fine (drawing the line at child pornography — though defining it can lead to endlessly reductive discussion). If it doesn’t bother me, should I not run an ad because a reader complains? Especially when, even if something does bother me, we’ll still run the ad (at least one advertiser who had a “fuck” removed is now at the keyboard). I’m afraid I’m sounding like a libertarian, though I haven’t been that purposefully naive since before puberty.
A great moment in John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 finds a cop on a bus transporting prisoners saying to a mass murderer, “You’re not, you’re not a psychopath; you’re not stupid …” “But I’m an asshole,” the killer says, cutting him off. “Can’t take everything away from me.” Chronicle writers, myself included, don’t offer opinions to generate revenue nor alter them to please advertisers. Remember, if you disagree with us, it’s not money, but that we’re assholes with asinine opinions. 
This article appears in November 7 • 2003.