Follow-up: Drawing the line: Our readers respond

In our last issue we told of rejecting an ad that we felt our readers would consider inappropriate, and asked for feedback on our decision. The focal point of the ad for Arizona-grown produce was the backside of a squash, deftly designed to resemble a human posterior. The artwork was suggestive but not in itself offensive. Our concern was the tagline accompanying the illustration, which played on a recognizable vulgarism to ensure that no one missed the alliteration. Of the several dozen comments we received from our readers, the vast majority agreed with our longstanding policy to decline content that we feel wouldn’t be acceptable to the families who read our paper and count on us to exercise good judgment when it comes to the stories, photos and ads that appear on our pages. We appreciate the feedback we received and will continue to follow what we believe to be the community standards held by most readers. We also appreciate the comments of two of those readers who questioned why, if we would refuse the ad in question, we would accept advertising—which we do regularly— from a local business that employs young women in costumes that reveal more skin than would, say, those working in a school, a bank or a doctor’s office. It’s a legitimate question and one we should not overlook. We live in a world where moral standards have grown increasingly relaxed over the years. We remember the early days of TV when couples always were shown in single beds, when Elvis was cut off from the waist down when he appeared on the popular Ed Sullivan variety show. While such strict policies may have been considered appropriate for those times, they’ve long since been replaced by a more permissive standard. So, returning to the question raised in our last issue, where do we draw the line? We can’t operate in 2015 the same way we likely would have in 1950. All we can tell you is that we try to be cognizant of the standards of the majority of our readers and to make sure we don’t push the envelope of propriety when it comes to the stories, photos and ads that we publish. It may not always agree with 100 percent of our readers, but we want you to know we’ll remain vigilant in our efforts to publish a product that meets the standards of most of the people, most of the time. Any time you disagree with the tone of our content we invite you to tell us about your concerns. Whether or not we make specific changes as a result, we respect the values of each and every reader—and keep those values in mind as we make the day-to-day decisions about what appears on our pages and, ultimately, in your home.

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