But over the weekend -- after Newt Gingrich had taken to Fox News to urge conservatives to boycott NBC -- came word that the network had changed its mind.   In a statement released Saturday evening and reported by the Associated Press, NBC declared: ""We have reviewed and changed our ad standards guidelines and made the decision that our policy will apply to content only and not to a referenced Web site."

The original ban on controversial issue ads doesn't make a whole lot of sense to us, but this modification makes even less. If an ad sends viewers directly to a Web site, why shouldn't the content of that site have to meet whatever standards are required of the ad? Would NBC allow an anodyne ad that gave out a link to the homepage of the American Nazi party?  

Still, at least NBC got Newt Gingrich off its back. 

"NBC said it declined to air the ad because it refers to the group's Web site, which the network said was too political," reports the AP, "not because of the ad's message."

NBC implied that generating publicity by having the ad turned down may have been the group's goal all along. "Candidly, some folks have found that you get more attention when an ad is not accepted," said an NBC official.