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July 13, 2005updated 22 Nov 2022 4:03pm

Adverts axed to make way for coverage

By Press Gazette

Most newspapers opted to clear their main news pages of adverts to provide more space for coverage of last Thursday’s tragedy.

The
Mirror had no adverts on pages one to 19, The Sun was ad-free up to
page 26 and both The Independent and The Times were ad-free for the
first 26 pages.

The Sun managing editor Graham Dudman said: “On a
story like this you take a decision that news takes over – and it’s
often inappropriate to have ads next to this kind of coverage.”

The
only nationals to carry adverts in their first 10 pages alongside
disaster coverage were The Guardian and the Telegraph which both
carried display ads on pages six and seven. The latter’s six and seven
spread was dominated by a huge psychedelic advert promoting the “Ford
summer of love”.

A spokesman for the Daily Telegraph said: “We
cleared the first four pages of ads and combined sport and business,
the other adverts were moved around.”

The Guardian’s news editor
Ed Pilkington said: “We did clear a huge amount of adverts in what is a
very busy time of year for advertising. A lot of ads were pushed out
and some advertisers requested to come out anyway.”

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