1. It’s far from free. You can go to any public place and say whatever you want. And anyone else can too. In the United States we’re pretty much covered on that. But you can’t advertise whatever you want in public space. Financially it’s out of reach. It takes an unreasonable amount of money to communicate your message through advertising that makes it inaccessible to all but a few citizens. Try to work outside the advertising spaces and you become a vandal. Ultimately, advertising is for private, business interests, not the public.

“But what if you can gather up the unreasonable amount of money?” you ask.

2. Even if you have the money, advertising spaces are not publicly accessible. The company has to approve your message. This gets all kinds of messed up. Here’s 3 quick examples:

a. In 2008, Suzanne Opton’s contract with a billboard company was canceled because the company didn’t want to display her portraits of active-duty soldiers. And she was ready to pay the $50,000 they agreed to in the contract.

b. Last year this WTF subway ad was rejected by the MTA because it conflicted with the MTAs interests:

The ad is targeted toward transit riders and is in the general interest. It’s target is not the MTA as much as Mayor Bloomberg. Yet still, it was rejected.

c. While the MTA decided the above ad was not acceptable, just this week, in a controversial move, the MTA decided this ad is acceptable and it is running on trains now:

(Excuse the fact that I’m sidestepping the disgusting, semi-racist, anti-Islamic, pseudo logic in this ad because Jeffery Goldberg nailed it already and I’m trying to make a separate point.)

Private interests are making judgment calls on what falls under the 1st Amendment. It doesn’t matter what the courts would say when the gatekeepers to the discourse won’t supply access. While I find the above “Why There?” add simple minded and counter-productive, it would be great if I could enter the dialogue on a level playing field – where I don’t have to have tens of thousands of dollars to buy in to the debate.

We can’t depend on businesses to uphold and defend our rights. Business argues that advertising is Free Speech protected by the Constitution so they can broadcast their message, but make no mistake, they’re not interested in the free speech, freedom of ideas, equal access, and open discussion and debate that culture and our democracy needs. They’re simply interested in getting their sales messages into your brain.

Here’s a thought from Paul Sachelari, Anti-Advertising Agency Legal Counsel:

Of course, the First Amendment, as any grade school kid will tell you, is the right to free speech enshrined in the Constitution. However, the right is not absolute, but rather elastic. It applies absolutely to some speech and less so to others. The most protected is political speech, while commercial speech requires much less deference.

What do you think?

Related posts:

1. Protecting Free Speech: Your Pharma Ad Man
2. Billboard industry gums up anti-blight enforcement in S.F.
3. Billboard Companies Protest Billboard Tax…On Illegal Billboards – from Torontoist

Photograph: Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters

Distributed yesterday morning to surprised NYC commuters, the paper replaced the oft frivolous Post content with imperative stories about climates change, while keeping all other elements equal. The idea was that Post readers do care about climate change (by virtue of their desire to remain both comfortable and alive), the paper just needs some assistance finding their greener voice. Generously, we were there to offer a helping hand — demonstrating how the Post could use their hallmark writing style and pun-ny headlines to tackle important environmental issues. Read all of the articles here.

The ads seek to remind consumers of the commonsense value of what they already have, rather than enticing them to buy anything new. Can you imagine the sheer brilliance of tap water — it is delicious, refreshing, and LITERALLY comes out of your faucet…and doesn’t cost $1.50 a pop! Can you think of a single earnestly advertised product that rivals tap water’s miraculousness??

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2. Watch Out Dr. Zizmor
3. New York City’s Struggle to Take Down Illegal Billboards

Now, the city has three full time people working on the code-enforcement detail stopping illegal billboards. Unfortunately, San Franciscans who don’t want to be bombarded with billboards across the city-scape have a new problem to contend with… the billboard industry’s legal team.

As this article in today’s San Francisco Chronicle explains, although the city has issued citations in over 250 cases, almost none of the fines have been paid by the billboard owners.

According to city Planning Department officials, a three-person enforcement team has located more than 250 illegal billboards and sought fines against the company owners and landlords totaling about $1.5 million. Only $50,500 of that has been collected, however, in part because the majority of the fines are tied up in unresolved legal actions. “We’re trying to stop any new billboards from going up and finding the ones that have been put up without permits,” said Dan Sider, the city planner in charge of the program. “Outdoor advertising is a lucrative industry, so the companies are hiring very skilled lawyers who are waging legal challenges.” It didn’t take long for the outdoor advertising industry, which handles $7.2 billion in business each year, to file legal challenges. Two cases recently argued in Los Angeles federal district court may not bode well for San Francisco. In both cases – which are now pending at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals – the district courts ruled that restrictions on billboards are not enforceable because they violated the Constitution. In one case, the court ruled that Los Angeles created a double standard by restricting private advertising signs, but simultaneously sold ad space on bus shelters and other public places. “It’s a violation of the First Amendment if the city allows some signs, but not others without justification,” said Rex Heinke, a Los Angeles attorney, who is representing a company in one of the Los Angeles cases.

I guess we’ll have to see what the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (also located in San Francisco) has to say about this issue. Once again the business interests fall back on the First Amendment to purportedly protect their trampling on the public’s enjoyment of a blight-free public space. Of course, the First Amendment, as any grade school kid will tell you, is the right to free speech enshrined in the Constitution. However, the right is not absolute, but rather elastic. It applies absolutely to some speech and less so to others. The most protected is political speech, while commercial speech requires much less deference. It remains to be seen how much import the judges on the Ninth Circuit will attach to visual clutter…

Related posts:

1. Oakland’s Ban on “Visual Blight” Upheld in Court
2. Clear Channel Messed with LA Weekly and Lost!
3. New York City’s Struggle to Take Down Illegal Billboards

A billboard company has canceled its contract to display one of photographer Suzanne Opton’s portraits of active-duty soldiers on an outdoor space in St. Paul, Minnesota, site of the Republican National Convention. Opton, a New York-based photographer, shot her “Soldiers Faces” series at Fort Drum, in New York State, between 2004 and 2005, with the permission of the soldiers and their commanders. Having exhibited the portraits in galleries around the U.S., this year Opton launched the “Soldier Billboard Project,” a program to display the images on public billboards in five U.S. cities.

One of her images was to go on display on a billboard in St. Paul last, but CBS Outdoor, which controls the space, canceled the contract. In an email sent to Opton last week, CBS Outdoor Executive Vice President of Marketing Jodi Senese wrote, “The reason we have advised you that we cannot post these as billboards is that out-of-context (neither in a museum setting or website) the images, as stand-alone highway or city billboards, appear to be deceased soldiers. The presentation in this manner could be perceived as being disrespectful to the men and women in our armed forces.”

Each portrait in Opton’s series is a close up of a soldier as he rests his face on a table.

In August, Opton’s photo of a soldier who had served 120 days in Afghanistan was displayed on a billboard in Denver, site of the Democratic Party’s convention. The Denver billboard was arranged with support from the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art. According to a press statement from Opton, other soldier billboards are planned for Houston (with help from DiverseWorks ArtSpace), Atlanta (Atlanta Contemporary Art Center) and Miami. The “Soldier Billboard Project” is supported by funding from the New York Foundation for the Arts.

“We have every intention of moving forward with our plans,” said Susan Reynolds, curator of the Billboard Project.

The nine images that make up “Soldier Billboard Project” are on view at www.soldiersface.com.

thanks Alice Arnold

More on billboards denied for anti-war content:
Minnesota ant-war video billboard
“All your arguments about (free) speech are ridiculous”
2004 – Group sues over anti-war billboard and wins (er, settles)

Related posts:

1. New York City’s Struggle to Take Down Illegal Billboards
2. NYT: Pay Phones Turned Mini-Billboards
3. Buenos Aires to Remove 40 Thousand Billboards to Fight Visual Pollution