Guidelines

GUIDELINES TO JOIN

The Parenting Media Association provides opportunities for member networking and professional development. To maintain the association’s reputation for quality and integrity, all existing and prospective PMA members are expected to exhibit high levels of journalistic excellence and ethical business practices. Once approved for membership, each member publication is expected to comply with PMA’s standards and criteria on an ongoing basis as follows:

Business Practices

Members must have been publishing local parenting content for at least six (6) months in the form of a parenting publication, parenting website, and/or a parenting e-newsletter.

Applicants that are part of a larger media company must apply together at the same time, with all of its qualifying parenting media members joining. This applies to franchise models as well. The membership dues will be calculated with the highest revenue parenting media asset (or parent company if a franchise model) as the first member and each additional parenting media asset (or franchisee) will be charged as an add-on member.

Editorial

The editorial content of members must be dedicated to topics and subjects directed at the local parenting community in their regional markets. Members must maintain a minimum of 30% editorial content overall; maximum of 70% advertising overall, at least 75% of editorial content must relate directly to parenting/families and at least 60% of editorial content must be locally generated and/or locally focused or be of specific local interest to the member’s readership.

Editorial and Advertising Mix

Members must exhibit a clear distinction between advertising and editorial content.

• Layout, design and typeface of all kinds of advertising pages should be distinctly different than editorial copy. The main typeface of the magazine’s or website’s editorial content should not be used in advertisements or special advertising sections.
• As publishers incorporate more options for advertisers to tell their stories in print, digitally and via social media, keep in mind our interest in being transparent with readers. When an advertising message has the feel of editorial content, it is important to alert readers. Content marketing or native advertising stories can be sold to advertisers in print, digitally or via social media, but they must be labeled as such using the words such such as “Advertising” or “Sponsored Content” “Brought to you by…” be attached to any print ad, online copy, and/or social media post/story/video reel that is tied to paid advertising.
• Editorial space should not be sold or bartered in exchange for advertising.
• Print advertising should not be placed adjacent to editorial as the result of improper involvement or to imply editorial endorsement of particular advertisers.

Cover Guidelines

Members with print publications and/or digital editions must exhibit a clear distinction between advertising and editorial content. While the cover is editorial space, in today’s business, there may be times when an ad might appear on the publication cover. Members must maintain the requirement that editorial space not be sold or bartered in exchange for advertising and the cover ad should comply with these requirements:

• Position: Ads on covers must be positioned on the bottom half, well away from the magazine logo.
• Size: Ads must be limited to no more than 1/16 size of the page
• Font must be different from the editorial font
• Ad message and language should not integrate with editorial (for example, if the edit blurb reads “Five Must-See Family Movies,” the ad copy cannot read “Chipmunks: The Must-See Movie of the Summer”)
• Art should be contained in a border or clearly separated by its own color
• False covers and the front side of cover flaps used for advertising should always be labeled as advertising.