Escort ads in weeklies and editor responsibility

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Escort ads in weeklies and editor responsibility

Postby sam » Tue Apr 29, 2008 8:03 am

go to the link for the hyperlinks
http://nopornnorthampton .org/2008/03/10/escort-prostitution-advertising-response-to-tom-vannah-valley-advocate.aspx

Escort Prostitution: A Response to Tom Vannah, Editor of the Valley Advocate

Posted by NPNAdmin at 3/10/2008 1:54 PM and is filed under NPN in the News,Business Ethics,First Amendment,Media Ethics,Debate on the Issues,What You Can Do,Prostitution

On March 4, Tom Vannah, editor of the Valley Advocate, took a few minutes to voice his displeasure with NoPornNorthampton on his WHMP radio show (listen to the mp3). We have been bringing Mr. Vannah large amounts of information about the sex industry since 2006. We have asked the Advocate to drop ads for escort services and other commercial sex enterprises. Unfortunately, Mr. Vannah believes this is a matter of freedom of speech. Any compassion he might feel for people in the sex industry or the community at large is not as important.

Mr. Vannah concedes that "there is some percentage of people who are not willing participants in the sex industry", but believes that if the Advocate refuses to accept Massage/Escort ads, this will unacceptably crimp "artistic freedom". He mentions Mapplethorpe pictures as an example. How dropping ads for commercial sex enterprises will compel the Advocate to turn away Mapplethorpe pictures is not clear to us.

First, NoPornNorthampton has a deep respect for the First Amendment, with some 60+ articles that touch on it in some way.

Second, the First Amendment does not apply in this situation. We are not calling for the government to censor commercial sex ads out of the Advocate. We are calling on members of the Advocate, as private citizens, to exercise their discretion about what to publish. The Advocate's sister publication, the Gazette, has no problem with telling NoPornNorthampton what it can and cannot say in an advertisement. In 2006, for example, the Gazette refused to let us run an ad with the word "condom" in it. (The goal was to inform citizens of the fact that used condoms and other hazardous trash have been found outside the Amazing.net store in Kittery, Maine.)

Third, the First Amendment does not transform an illegal activity into a legal or acceptable one. In Orlando, police investigators report that "We've never called anyone dealing with these ads who was not providing prostitution services." It is almost certainly the case that many, if not most of the Massage/Escort ads in the Advocate are promoting illegal businesses. How else can a person reasonably interpret an ad that promotes "FOREIGN FANTASIES...Everything Goes...InOut...GFE", where GFE means "girl friend experience"? (According to MSNBC, the full "girl friend experience" can entail "sex without condoms".)

Did the publisher of the Orlando Weekly claim that the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation, which busted them for aiding prostitution, was motivated by the Weekly's past criticism of the MBI? Sure, and we didn't make that claim hard to find. We linked to a story about it in the "See Also" section of this post. The fact remains that the Orlando Weekly does appear to have aided and profited from prostitution. To complain about the motivation of the police is an attempt at distraction, as are Mr. Vannah's claims that we care more about attracting attention to ourselves than to the issue. There are many, many less stressful ways to attract attention to ourselves, ways that won't invite people to call us "fascists" and hope we leave town. We do this work because someone needs to care.

As for somehow tarring NoPornNorthampton as "white privileged yuppies", we're the ones trying to defend the interests of those who are not white privileged yuppies. White privileged male Tom Vannah is the one insisting on his right not to exercise judgment and compassion about which enterprises his private media outlet chooses to profit from.

In his March 4 broadcast and in an earlier broadcast, Mr. Vannah has tried to lessen his personal responsibility by saying we should plead our case with the publisher and/or the Tribune Company. We are in fact in communication with the publishing staff. However, Mr. Vannah's responsibility remains. These ads contribute to his salary, and his strident claims that this is a First Amendment issue appear to be influencing the publishing side. If Mr. Vannah changed his mind, we believe it would have a profound impact.

If we have failed to exercise "due diligence" or the "proper steps", as Mr. Vannah claims, we would be happy to know just what those steps are. We invited Mr. Vannah to dialogue with us privately last year. We received no response. There are over 45 articles in our Prostitution category. How much evidence does Mr. Vannah require before conceding the obvious, that the Advocate almost certainly abets and profits from prostitution, and that prostitution is a miserable and dangerous job for most women?

Lest there be any confusion about exactly what we're objecting to, it's the ads for commercial sex enterprises, not "personal ads", as erroneously stated in the summary on WHMP's website. We emailed Mr. Vannah to correct this on Friday evening. So far there's been no correction.

Mr. Vannah may find it irritating or embarrassing to receive printouts from our website at WHMP or his office, but so far that's the only thing that seems to be getting his attention. Rest assured these printouts are on 100% recycled paper. If it's trees he's worried about, they're safe.

While a few women may choose a life of prostitution in a truly voluntary fashion, the reality for most is a history of sexual and/or child abuse, separation from their family and/or country, and poverty. Addictions to drugs or alcohol are common. They are routinely lied to, coerced, abused, threatened, and blackmailed (e.g. 'I'll hurt your family back in the Ukraine if you don't cooperate').

When a "progressive" outlet like the Advocate runs ads for commercial sex enterprises, it not only publicizes them but legitimizes them. It also puts a big dent in the Advocate's moral authority. If the Advocate truly wants to
be a friend to underdogs, it needs to side with them over callous profiteers.

Sweden's successful experience with combating prostitution is worth studying. Not only have they improved conditions for a badly oppressed group of women, their campaign has produced benefits in other areas. Quoting Marie De Santis, director of the Women's Justice Center/Centro de Justicia Para Mujeres, "Sweden's law enforcement community has found that the prostitution legislation benefits them in dealing with all sex crimes, particularly in enabling them to virtually wipe out the element of organized crime that plagues other countries where prostitution has been legalized or regulated."

Prostitution is not a "victimless" crime, nor should it be seen in isolation from other criminal activity. A business that cares about women and the community should not seek profits from prostitution. The only effective rebuttal Mr. Vannah could make is to prove to us that every Massage/Escort ad in the Advocate is for a legitimate, non-exploitative business. For all his heated rhetoric, this he does not do, nor do we think he can.

Email Mr. Vannah and call Gazette publisher Aaron Julien to let them know what you think.

tvannah @valleyadvocate.com
http://www.dailyhampshiregazette.com/contactForm.cfm
"Your orgasm can no longer dictate my oppression"

Trisha Baptie
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Re: Escort ads in weeklies and editor responsibility

Postby oneangrygirl » Sun May 04, 2008 1:40 pm

I wrote this to them:
I wanted you to know that I support the actions of NoPornNorthampton and I think you are delusional if you believe that prostitution is a victimless crimes.
There are acres and acres of research on the harms of prostitution, all of which are simple to find using Google. Just search the name Melissa Farley for starters.
The bottom line is you don't want to live without the ad revenue, so if children, drug addicts, or trafficking victims have to be repeatedly raped to keep your tabloid going, so be it.
Does that about sum it up?
I guess some slavery feels like freedom.
-Wembley Fraggle
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Re: Escort ads in weeklies and editor responsibility

Postby bluecoat28 » Sun May 04, 2008 6:18 pm

I sent em this. I wouldn't have sent anything if oneangrygirl didn't, but when I see other people sending stuff it motivates me to:

To the Valley Advocate,

I hope Tom Vannah, editor of the Valley Advocate, begins to take women's and girls' human rights seriously by doing something as simple as pulling the escort service and commercial sex ads from the Valley Advocate newspaper.

Please dredge up some empathy for the women and girls hurt by sexual capitalism. Many women and girls in these industries have been sexually abused as children, are in economic need, and/or are repeatedly raped, beaten, and verbally abused by pimps and men who have no qualms about buying and trading humans.

Sexual exploitation is glamorized on TV and pop culture. The violence women and girls experience in prostitution is made invisible as a result. The following is a quote from a fourteen year old prostitution survivor about the harms and consequences of being prostituted. She said: "You feel like a piece of hamburger meat – all chopped up and barely holding together" (D. Kelly Weisberg, 1985, Children of the Night, Lexington Books, Toronto). The Valley Advocate makes the violence invisible by publishing the commercial sex ads.

I agree with Northampton's activism surrounding these ads.
bluecoat28
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Re: Escort ads in weeklies and editor responsibility

Postby oneangrygirl » Sat May 17, 2008 4:08 pm

i got a reply from the editor:
I have never said, nor has ayone at the Advocate ever argued, that prostitution is a victimless crime. NPN's concern about the Advocate is that we publish a small number of escort ads in our classified section, which as I have explained to NPN many times, is not a section over which the editors have any control. Moreover, we have no reason to believe that the escort services advertising in that section are breaking any laws. I have repeatedly encouraged NPN to bring its concerns to the publishers, and it is my understanding that Adam Cohen is in talks with Aaron Julien, the top man at Newspapers of New England.

So, no, what you've written doesn't just about sum it up. Not even close. But if you'd like me to run your note as a letter to the editor, I'd be happy to do that.

All best,
Tom Vannah, editor
I guess some slavery feels like freedom.
-Wembley Fraggle
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