The Digest's Unique Ad

Reader's Digest is about to make its own contribution to the coverage of Topic A with what it calls a "unique new series of educational messages about the American economic system." The first of twelve monthly installments appears in the February issue. Judging by the initial offering, released last week, the only unique feature of the enterprise is the unusual marriage of editorial and advertising interests that conceived it.

Though researched and written by Digest editorial people, each page of each "message" will be clearly labeled ADVERTISEMENT. The advertiser is the Business Roundtable, a nonprofit group of 150 corporate executives organized to educate the public in the free-enterprise system. The Roundtable raised $1.2 million to buy 36 pages in twelve consecutive Digest issues at the magazine's regular advertising rate. Though the preface mentions the Roundtable's participation, it omits interesting details of that organization's role. For instance, the Roundtable's 15-member public-information committee is empowered to kill an installment if the group considers it unsatisfactory.

The Digest launched the idea in the fall of 1973. Said Richard McLoughlin, director of magazine operations: "We thought that all kinds of people were taking potshots at American business and that the American economic system needed to be explained." The series promises to provide a "better understanding of our business system, warts and all." The first installment, entitled "Whatever Happened to the Nickel Candy Bar?" glosses over the current recession but sums up instead the importance of high efficiency in industrial production: "You have, we have, in our hands, in ourselves, the means to produce not just cars and books and songs and bread, but an entire way of life and economic environment second to none."

That statement is rather typical of much Digest prose and opinion. However, if the prosperous magazine (circ. 18.8 million) wanted to convey its views on economics to its readers, why do it in ads paid for by very interested parties? Digest Managing Editor Edward T. Thompson sought to explain: "It is not reasonable to run an article on American business every month. We wouldn't run that many all in a row."

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