Via the New York Times
By Miguel HelftIn the early hours of Monday morning, the World Association of Newspapers posted a lengthy communique on its Web site calling the Google-Yahoo advertising partnership anti-competitive and urging regulators to block the deal. According to its Web site, the World Association of Newspapers represents 76 national newspaper associations and more than 18,000 publications in five continents. Its communique led to flurry of headlines that essentially said “Newspapers Around World Oppose Yahoo-Google Ad Deal.”
But hours later, the U.S.-based Newspaper Association of America, a member of the World Association of Newspapers, issued a communique of its own (they called it a press release). In it, John F. Sturm, president of the association said: “While NAA is a member of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), I would like to clarify that the NAA Board of Directors has taken no position on the proposed advertising partnership between Google and Yahoo.” The association represents more than 2000 newspapers in the United States and Canada. Its members account for 90 percent of the daily circulation of newspapers in the United States.
