MoveOn.org has proven to be a headache for newspapers.
On Sunday, The New York Times said it erred in giving the liberal anti-war group a $77,508 price break on a full-page advertisement attacking Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.
Now the Star Tribune, a Minneapolis newspaper, is refunding about $12,000 to Al Franken, a Minnesota Democratic Senate candidate, after undercharging Sen. Norm Coleman, for a full-page advertisement spawned by the one in the Times.
Franken is one of several Democrats vying to unseat Coleman.
The Star Tribune said it charged Coleman, R-Minn., around $20,000 for Tuesday’s ad, which criticized Franken for not condemning the MoveOn.org ad. Two months ago, according to the newspaper, it charged Franken around $32,000 for a full-page ad in the paper criticizing Coleman’s record on the Iraq war.
Star Tribune spokesman Ben Taylor said Wednesday that a new sales representative had incorrectly quoted the Coleman campaign the local retail rate, rather than the rate charged to national advertisers…FULL STORY
