Quote, unquote: on publishing's broken value exchange

The truth is that there have always been awkward "church and state" encroachments for journalists, even under the classic advertising model. In the extreme, publishers would demand favorable coverage for important advertisers, but on the fringes, there have been long-standing practices of publishing "special editions," advertorials, and other custom content that effectively touted the products and services of advertisers in their pages, but not technically under the imprimatur of their journalistic brands.

-- Joe Mandese, in an article in Media magazine, exploring the relation between the "free versus paid" argument and the "church and state" separation of ad and editorial.