I’m not sure what to do about your time discrepancy, except to note it in the comment thread. I wouldn’t worry too much about it though, a couple of hours doesn’t make a difference in the long run.

i was wondering if you have Yahoo IM ,,, if so please give me your screenname or contact me TIA

Thank you for your response. I believe that Forbes and most media organizations know that there is a disconnect between them and the blame that a consumer would place upon a defective product discovered through an advertisement. They are simply creating the advertising forum and the content that they produce is produced to create the forum. Consumers would probably place more blame on Forbes for misleading or inaccurate conclusions in their content rather than misleading messages in their advertising programs.

Think about this for just a moment. You read an ad in the Wall Street Journal in which an investment newsletter is advertising for subscriptions based on a 12 year track record of 26% gains on average annually. After subscribing and reading the newsletter for a year, you unequivocally conclude that the newsletter publishes a fraudulent track record. Would you think for a moment to blame the Wall Street Journal or would your anger be directed at the newsletter? If a consumer decided to alert the Wall Street Journal, then their role would be the same role that you played in contacting Forbes. That role is well respected and appreciated.

Yes, the Wall Street Journal in that case would have some sense of responsibility to at least pull the ad. However, I’m not sure what sense of responsibility they would have to investigate the claims of the newsletter.

Once again, thank you for bringing this to the public’s attention.

Considering how important journalistic integrity is to these publications, it would seem to me that if an ad had the potential to hurt your customers, that you’d want to think very carefully about who you take on as business partners. In the case of Google ads, it seems less controversial because there isn’t necessarily a level of financial trust between Google’s adsense program and the publication that is running them. IBD on the other hand is a place where readers do go to get investment analysis, so in my view their research should be more diligent. If the ads are in fact correlated to the penny stock prices (which would be a great research project for a bright MBA student) than IBD needs to take a closer look at this issue and determine whether it’s appropriate to show these stocks to their customers, if they know that by running the ad, it will cause prices to spike and if their customers end up with terrible execution prices. At the end of the day, maybe whoever pays the most wins, but I think that the damage that is being done to their readers, isn’t worth extra money that can be earned from the “classifieds”

It’s up to each individual publication to set their own standards and for readers to determine how important the issue is to them. It’s easy for me to speak out when I don’t run ads on my own site, but when I see sites pass up this easy money, so that they err on the side of caution, it makes me respect those publications all that much more. If at the end of the day, you end up losing readers over bad stock tips, then no matter how may ads you can sell, the cost doesn’t seem worth. Other’s may not share the same convictions, but by raising the issue, hopefully these firms will re-evaluate their policies and can find a hapy medium where they can pay for good journalists and show their readers interesting ideas.

As far as Doug’s comment goes, you are absolutely correct, it’s up to each individual investor to determine the appropriateness of an investment and what they think it should be worth. No one is making IBD readers buy the stock, even if these frothy ads seem to be having an impact. At the end of the day, it’s easy to say that the responsiblity lies in the hands of the reader, but if you know that even a small percentage of your readers will react to the ad, than I think it’s an issue that the business press should be addressing, even if they are not the ones putting in the buy orders for the stock.

After thinking about the ads and the attack on Forbes and IBD, I thought that maybe we’re being a little unfair. That comes from a guy who’s not a big fan of Forbes. The fact is, “Doesn’t all media exist to sell advertisements.”

In fact, I found your original post on Seeking Alpha, a great site that is one of the best aggregators of financial content on the web today. To the right, I saw Google ads being served and the first ad was a link to a site called The Bull Run report. On the front page of The Bull Report, they are promoting a stock with something more valuable than all the Fort Knox gold and Saudi Arabian oil combined. That’s their words, not mine. Does David Jackson and the rest of the team at Seeking Alpha have an obligation to investigate the claims of The Bull Run Report? Absolutely not!! What is the difference between that link ad and the ad in Forbes. In fact, a media organization has a very limited obligation to investigate these claims. If they did, then would News Corp have an obligation to investigate the validity of acne creams being hawked on late night infomercials. Let’s face it, very little of the massage that is displayed in an advertising campaign is accurate. If it was, then I would be able to jump as high as Michael Jordan when I wear a pair of sneakers or smile everytime I eat at a fast food restaurant. Fortunately, I don’t.

In the end, I think you wrote series of extremely valuable articles that will aid in protecting investors. However, Forbes and IBD have as much obligation to investigate the claims of advertisements as websites do in terms of investigating the message of Google adwords being served on their websites.

Thank you for your posts.

I actually canceled my subs to many of the magazines you list. Not because of any stock investing moralities. I won’t subscribe to them because they started threatening me.

When I moved to the new place I couldn’t handle all my subs, so I didn’t renew. It was then the problem started. Forbes was actually the worst. They started threatening to send me to collections. Sent constant letters saying I owed them money. Finally I had to call and put the harsh down. Basically what I said is – when I stop re-subbing – it is their responsibility to stop sending me magazines. Because of their irritating policy – I would cancel every single sub from their company. And I wouldn’t give them anymore money. I canceled about 10 subs before the magazine companies started acting like they cared at all.

There were some publishing companies that were very good at stopping my subs when I didn’t re-up. Those people I will give money to when I have more time. I won’t give money to Forbes at all though. I can tell you though they are feeling the pain from the Internet. The magazines are much thinner than even a year ago.

Anyway – this is getting long – but…the market swings too wildly now for most of the investment mags to be very relevant at all. Most peole won’t watch their porfolio, and for those that do.. they are more savy than ever before. Causing those mags to be in a constant fight for life.