A very sad day for print journalism.

Still not as bad, in my opinion, as advertorials. Which will, no doubt, adorn the front page below the fold at some point.

I'm less concerned about a print ad getting sandwiched inside a news story than PR getting so seamlessly packaged as to be reported as news. Thinking here of various questionably produced drug studies, for starters. Though I too found the big Cat in the Hat ad really bizarre. I would have read it and enjoyed it just fine underneath the story. Seems kind of greedy of the advertiser, to this reader anyway, and a Target shopping reader at that.

Bright colorful ads that interrupt news content are the way of the future, according to newspaper designer Mario Garcia. I believe it's already a common practice in foreign papers.

Not that it's pretty....

"In the first book featuring the character (The Cat in the Hat, 1957), the Cat brings a cheerful, exotic and exuberant form of chaos to a household of two young children one rainy day while their mother leaves them unattended. Bringing with him two creatures appropriately named Thing One and Thing Two, the Cat performs all sorts of wacky tricks to amuse the children, with mixed results"

Now you tell me that the ad choice isn't intentionally symbolic; Obama is the cat,the two young children represent the Dems and Repubs,the mother leaving is Mmarket deregulation, the rainy day symbolizes the current economy, Thing One and Thing Two are clearly metaphors for the stimulus package and a trick to be named in the future.

Perhaps ad reps are studying up on <A href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hersey">Hersey</a>?

I'm sure that's it.

The entire "mainstream media" ignored every major story about Obama last year (Rezko, Blago, etc.) and THIS is what is called a "sad day for journalism"? Fact-based, "unbiased" (at least the attempt at fair and unbiased) journalism died some time ago, this is just another last gasp at attempting to keep it alive.

One, you guys should be happy that the Strib sold an ad! Who cares where it's placed? It's going to pay a few bills.

Two, why no outrage of spending a third of the page's news hole on a photo of Obama (albeit an interesting photo)? It's not like we don't know what he looks like. (Tangent: Hard to imagine the Strib running a similar size photo of any of our past presidents.)

Three, the truth is that in a capitalistic culture, any media only exists as a vehicle for advertisers. (Did Pravda have "advertising" in the Cold War days? I suspect not ... or very little, but I don't know.) Less advertising, smaller news hole. Journalists exist to entertain and inform, creating readership that wants to buy or (in the case of the freebies) pick up a paper in hopes that the reader will respond to an ad. Yes, journalists do important work ... and it's generally fun work ... but it doesn't exist without advertisers or very wealthy people who want to do "give back" to the community. And, no, we don't need anymore government-supported news outlets.

"The entire "mainstream media" ignored every major story about Obama last year (Rezko, Blago, etc.)"

Other than the days and days and article after article on those stories, yes, they ignored them. Maybe they should resort to what conservative media do, and feed the tin-foil hat brigade.

Speaking of which, the real shame in the Sunday Pioneer Press was the decision of the editorial board to not only reprint Michael Stokes Paulsen's lie filled editorial in the Wall Street Journal last month on how the recount was screwed up, but in the editorial they quoted it and used it as an objective source of information that say the the election was chaotic. They couldn't even be bothered to print an opposing opinion or tell readers this was a conservative activist's opinion, not a legal analysis. I lost a lot of respect for the Pioneer Press today.

At least they sold an ad.

In our newspaper, we generally run ads on the bottom of the page.

So I was surprised to see the Target ad placed IN THE MIDDLE of a news story.

What's next? A faux news story about the foreclosure crisis in Whoville and Katroo?

The placement caught my eye.
The content raised my ire.
But while one should never dismiss malice (political or other), I wonder if there might be a more simple explanation.

Given the current popularity of President Obama, the Strib probably charges a premium for placing an advertisement adjacent to his picture.

If magazine covers are any indication of what sells, the Star Trib might be just following the crowd.

Two old sayings come to mind:

Water runs uphill towards money.

Never impute to political conspiracy what greed (or rank stupidity)can more easily explain.

We'll have to watch and see.