Should NOW get rid of its flesh-filled ads?

New York’s Village Voice is under pressure to get rid of its skin-tastic adult classifieds (practically a hallmark of alternative papers), prompting BlogTO writer Rick McGinnis to wonder whether NOW Magazine should do the same. The Voice dispute centres around backpage.com, which is a classifieds site owned by the paper’s parent company Village Voice Media, and whose adult ad section, opponents say, is often used for the sexual trafficking of minors. A high-profile online campaign saw 27 major advertisers pull out of Village Voice to compel the company to kill backpage.com’s adult classifieds. McGinnis thinks this is a good opportunity for NOW to clear out its own adult ads, before the controversy arrives in Canada. However, we can’t imagine NOW doing so anytime soon—when even big papers are struggling to make ends meet, we doubt alt-weeklies will forgo any ad revenues, even if they’re seen as a potential liability. Read the entire story [BlogTO] »