slides: Providence Journal Takes Ads from Cadillac Lounge and Targets High School Students

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Monday, February 14, 2011

GoLocalProv Investigative Team

The Cadillac Lounge has been at the center of the recent FBI round-up of alleged members of La Cosa Nostra, but that has not stopped the Providence Journal from accepting ads for XXX sex shows at the notorious strip club. The ads not only appeared on A.H.Belo’s Providence newspaper’s Web site - projo.com, but the site featured the ad for the sex shows on the site's High School Sports section called "GameTime." The ad promoting a well known strip club was obviously in full view of any young high school sports fan wanting to check game stats.

Rubber Doll

The advertisement promoted a XXX performance called “Rubber Doll” before it was pulled late Friday afternoon in response to inquiries about the ad from GoLocalProv.com. An employee in the Journal’s advertising department who asked that her name not be printed told GoLocalProv that the advertisement should not have appeared on the Web site and said she had it removed as soon as it was brought to her attention. The ad appeared for three days and linked to a separate page that the Providence Journal had created for a display ad (see right). She did not know how long the controversial strip club’s ad had been running on the site.

Always In The News

The Cadillac Lounge has been making Journal headlines since 2005 when the strip club was granted a liquor license despite a citywide ban on serving alcohol in adult entertainment locations. In June, federal investigators raided the Lounge as part of an ongoing investigation into how it obtained its permit. The venue found itself in the news again most recently in January 2011 when the former leader of the New England Mafia, Luigi "Baby Shacks" Manocchi, was arrested on conspiracy and extortion charges for allegedly accepting protection payments from both the Cadillac Lounge and the Satin Doll in downtown Providence. The US Attorney’s Office said they could not comment whether they are still in the process of investigating the club.

A source close to the paper said an advertisement for a venue constantly being called into question by the media outlet should never have been allowed to appear on the Web site. “At best it’s bad judgment,” the source said. “[The Cadillac Lounge] is always in the news. Of all places to put it, they chose the high school page. Those kids aren’t old enough to go to a place like that.”

Unfortunate For Society

It is perfectly legal for A.H. Belo’s Providence paper to run an ad for a strip club on a portion of the site designed to deliver information about high school athletes, but several prominent newspapers in the region, including the Boston Globe, have strict policies against running adult ads. Donald Anderson, the executive minister of the R.I. State Council of Churches, is among those who believe the Journal should hold itself to higher standards. “I think anything that takes a human life and cheapens it to the commercialized selling of oneself is unfortunate for society,” Anderson said. “I’m very much against these perverted acts that are often belittling to women. Many women get caught up in these situations and it’s usually not a happy ending.”

ACLU Would Oppose Banning Adult Ads

On September 13, 2010, the Journal ran an editorial criticizing Craigslist for not doing enough to prevent sexual exploitation. The Journal praised 17 Attorneys General, including Patrick Lynch, for calling for Craigslist to remove the “adult services” portion of the site, but said Craigslist needed to look at its standards. “The issue now is whether Craigslist ought to hold itself to a higher standard. Doing so would certainly keep it truer to its grassroots origins. It would also sharply limit the site’s role in some violent and despicable practices. The hope of the attorneys general is to shame the site into doing the right thing, since, for now, it appears to be on firm legal ground. Ironically, in seeking to better police itself, Craigslist managed to turn adult services ads into a huge moneymaker: They were bringing in tens of millions of dollars a year, and that could prove very hard to give up.”

While the Journal’s stance on sexual exploitation may now appear hypocritical, Executive Director of the ACLU Steve Brown said he would oppose a government ban of adult ads in any publication. “It’s a lawful place,” Brown said, referring to the Cadillac Lounge. “I think it’s a double standard to look at some companies' wrongdoings and let others go.”

He made no differentiation as to if the ad was adjacent to content provided to high school students. Effort to get comment from A.H. Belo’s corporate offices in Dallas, Texas were unsuccessful.
 

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