FTW Ad News and Updates Page

OCTOBER 30 , 2003

10/30/03
FTW Ad Runs in The New York Daily News!
The FTW "Man Behind the Curtain" ad has run in the Thursday edition of The New York Daily News. It took more than five months of rejections from the New York area newspapers before the ad was finally accepted. It is on page 44. The Thursday edition has the largest circulation.

SEPTEMBER 29, 2003

FTW Ad Campaign Saturates Northern California

September 29, 2003, 1200 PDT, (FTW) -- Following the Sept 3 running of FTW's full-page ad in The Sacramento Bee , the revolutionary ad campaign, which has evoked obvious concern from major media outlets, has bypassed a boycott by major California papers from San Francisco to Los Angeles by saturating the Northern California area as the state's bizarre gubernatorial race intensifies.

On Sept. 19th the ad ran in The Tri-Valley Herald - circ. 68,591 readership of approximately 100,000.

Sept. 24th the ad ran on page 8 of the front section of The Marin Independent Journal, or as the locals call it, the Marin IJ. The paper has a circulation of 64,420 and a readership of approximately 100,000.

On Sept. 25th the ad hit the front section of The Vallejo Times Herald with a circulation of 38,820 and an estimated readership of 60,000.

The same day, Sept. 25th, The Oakland Tribune ran the ad in their front section. The Tribune's circulation is 119,079 readership of over 150,000.

On Sept. 26th The Argus, with a circulation of 33,575 and an estimated readership of 65,000, featured the ad.

Still pending as part of the same package purchased by our L.A. ad agency are runs in The San Mateo County Times , The Daily Review , and The Vacaville Reporter.

The ads have had an impact. According to Bay-area news sources contacted by our advertising broker (himself a former news director at a major LA-based TV station), two bay area media outlets, one AM Talk station and one AM morning television news/talk show have had spirited and detailed discussions of the ad's content according to a source at KPIX channel 5 in San Francisco.

FTW has had to adjust its strategy since the publication of an article in The Boston Globe last July disclosed proprietary information on how the ads were being placed at low rates. As a result of that disclosure, major papers in some cases as much as tripled or quadrupled quoted ad rates and erected serious and unfair obstacles to its publication.

Since that time the task has been to stay within budget and still reach the same markets as laid out in our original plan. That is not to say that some major papers still aren't on tap and that we won't have some big surprises. The current Northern California strategy appears to be having a synergistic effect, however, as overlapping readerships see the ad on a number of successive days. Counting The Sacramento Bee the northern California campaign has reached an estimated readership of almost 750,000 and is not over yet.

Stay tuned

SEPTEMBER 3, 2003

FTW Ad Campaign is Back!

Today, FTW's full-page ad ran in California's fourth largest newspaper and the paper most read by political insiders during that California recall circus, The Sacramento Bee. Did Arnold see it? Did Cruz Bustamante or Gray Davis? Someone should ask them.

The ad can be found on page C7.

Expect to see the ad soon on The Oakland Tribune and The Detroit Free Press. More and better surprises are on the way.

AUGUST 27, 2003

FTW's National Ad Campaign Updates

August 27, 2003, 1700 PDT, (FTW) -- It's no secret that something happened after The Boston Globe ran a story on our national advertising campaign. To put it politely, confidential and proprietary information about our strategy and about how we obtain our rates was leaked to a number of papers. Several of those, including The Atlanta Journal Constitution and The Globe, for which the checks had already been cashed by the New York broker, changed their minds and scrubbed the ads. The Globe story archive can be downloaded here:

BostonGlobe Archive PDF

It seems that the major media doesn't like Toto's curtain pulling routine. But that doesn't mean for a moment that the ad campaign is over or that it has been thwarted. Our ad director, Ken Levine, never one to give up and a true genius in the field, hit the books and quietly began to document where major papers had previously run similar ads, disguised as direct response ads, at similar rates and began a quiet and laborious process of building a case and backing the behemoths into a corner. As a result we are about to see the ad campaign catch its second wind.

The FTW full-page ad is locked and a clock is running at The Sacramento Bee, one of the most watched papers as a result of the California recall effort. That ad could run any day now.

We are also locked at The Oakland Tribune/Alameda Times Star and several smaller local papers for a simultaneous run that will hit home to certain major California papers that have tried to exclude us from the Golden State completely.

We are expecting a major announcement soon regarding The Detroit Free Press.

But the big drama continues to unfold in New York and with some national publications we are not ready to name yet as a result of past experience. Some cards we have to play close to the vest.

I can report that New York's flagship paper has asked me and ad participants Catherine Austin Fitts, Cynthia McKinney and Francis Boyle to provide documentation corroborating almost every single word in the ad. To the dismay of that paper's legal department we have done so. Ken Levine has worked tirelessly to not only keep this one alive but to make it fly. As of two days ago, he advised that it was possible that FTW's full-page could run in New York in the week of September 4-11, and -- failing that -- almost certainly somewhere in the Big Apple shortly thereafter.

Rest assured that the all the donations are secure and being spent wisely. Know that, as Yogi Berra said, "It's not over till it's over". 

In spite of my recent bout with peritonitis and opposition from some major media powerhouses, the truth is bubbling and the FTW "ant" is moving rubber tree plants all over the place behind the scenes. That's because we have high hopes, some real talent, and the energy all of you have given us to see this through.

-- Mike Ruppert

JULY 30, 2003 -

FTW AD RUNS IN THE WILLAMETTE WEEK
Today, another of our ads ran in Oregon. The ad can be seen on Page 2 of the main section of the Willamette Week newspaper. Way to go!

JULY 21, 2003 -

FTW AD RUNS IN THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC
The second city in FTW's "Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain" 12-city ad campaign ran in the Arizona Republic today (July 21).
The ad is the entire back page of the Arizona Living section, page 8. According to the phone calls received by the newspaper, the ad has caused a tremendous stir. The fierce reaction has been no surprise to the FTW team, given that Arizona has long been a hotbed of conservatism, and the Republican Party stronghold of John McCain and the late Barry Goldwater. The ad will run in other major newspapers in the coming weeks.

FTW will continue monitoring these and other developments as they unfold.

JULY 18, 2003 -

FTW AD RUNS IN THE MIAMI HERALD
The first volley of our "Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain" ads has run today in the Miami Herald. This is Jeb Bush's backyard!
The ad can be found on page 21A.

JULY 12, 2003 - FTW expects our ads placed in the Miami Herald, The Boston Globe, The Arizona Republic and The Atlanta Journal Constitution to begin running next week. Again, we have no control over exact run dates but are working with time windows. We are nearing a decision point about other major placements and expect to make an announcement of additional orders soon. Checks have been cashed by the ad brokerage firm so the ad buy for the first four papers is a firm commitment.

On Thursday, July 10 The Boston Globe ran an acceptable column by journalist Mark Jurkowitz which is our first major penetration into mainstream media. To read the column please see this archive of the story:

BostonGlobe Archive PDF

Jurkowitz's statements that some of these papers aren't aware of the run dates for the ads may be accurate. The papers themselves won't know until the ad brokerage firm delivers the finished layouts about 24 hours before the run dates.

Stay tuned. This is getting exciting!

JULY 1, 2003 - As of July 1, 2003 FTW has placed insertion orders and written the check for our full page ad to run in the following newspapers:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Miami Herald
The Boston Globe
The Arizona Republic

Because in most cases all we are provided with is a time window in which the ads will run all we can say at this point is that FTW subscribers and those who contributed so generously to make this happen should start looking for the first ad to run sometime in the week of July 7th.

We are continuing our battles with censorship in some mainstream papers and we are winning some of them. We will say more when we can. We can promise you this: There will be some pleasant surprises coming.

Good news: New York is a lock!

Stay tuned…

JUNE 27, 2003 - Planning and purchase of ad space for FTW's national advertising campaign is nearing completion and we expect to have an announcement that insertion orders have been placed within the next three to five days. Our ad broker has reported some blanket refusals of an ad which has been previously run by The Washington Post and has now been accepted by The New York Times. In spite of this overt political censorship, preparation for a truly national campaign is nearing completion and, when complete, it will reach the estimated 40-50 million readers which was our original intent.

As previously indicated, FTW will not make an advance announcement as to which papers will be running the ads or when they are scheduled to run. In some cases we will not have an exact date of publication but rather a window of a week or so. We will, however, make a clear announcement of the papers which have unilaterally expressed their opposition to free speech as protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The cities where this censorship has taken place will surprise many of you.

Please watch closely for our next announcement.

Mike Ruppert
Publisher/Editor

05/16/03
Subscriber Buys FTW Full Page Ad in The Washington Post
Leaked Copy May Have Forced Resignation of Army Secretary.
From The Wilderness today ran a full-page ad in the front section of The Washington Post intended to educate the American people, support heroic leaders and promote a number of independent media outlets which have made important contributions since 9/11. The ad was the direct result of a donation from a subscriber who had recently viewed FTW Publisher Mike Ruppert's video "The Truth and Lies of 9-11".  The ad that ran today was actually a second version, the text of which had to be changed after the first version apparently caused some nervousness in Washington.

See the ad. Download a copy for yourself. Run the ad locally!
Read Now

Read the Ad Campaign Story <Here>    See the Ad <Here>   Donate<Here>