WebProNews

PR Week: Cheaptickets.com has confirmed it has canceled its sponsorship of Gawker Media travel blog Gridskipper less than one month after the deal went live.

PR Week: ""Basically, our contract allowed us to begin [and/or] end at any time, and upon content review we thought it best to pull our ads at this time," Kathie Gonzalez, manager of corporate communications at CheapTickets.com wrote to via e-mail. Gonzalez declined to further discuss the matter.

Nick Denton, publisher of Gawker Media, declined to comment specifically about CheapTickets.com, but, wrote via e-mail, "We'd rather lose the occasional advertiser than the character that attracts the audience in the first place. If an advertiser wants a safe environment, there are thousands of tired media outlets to choose from."

He continued: "Weblogs are supposed to be unexpected and wincingly frank. That's an essential part of the appeal to a generation that's turning away from network television and print media. We had a million visitors to our sites on Tuesday alone.""

(Via Business Blog Consulting)

Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.