New Testament as ad-insert in the Gazette

A different kind of ad-buy, the New York Times reports Scripture Sent With News, as the International Bible Society paid to insert a copy of the New Testament in last Sunday's issue of The Colorado Springs Gazette.

Bob Burdick, publisher of The Gazette, said that the paper regularly took advertising from religious and political groups, and that most readers understood that such advertisements did not amount to an endorsement of their ideas.

"We're not in the business of stifling ideas," Mr. Burdick said. "I don't think papers have to back away from ideas because they're religious ideas, just as they shouldn't back away from ideas because they're political ideas."

The paper received 195 positive messages about the insert and 69 negative ones and 5 people canceled subscriptions, a muted reaction compared with the response when a comic strip is pulled, Mr. Burdick noted.