Update: Fake Front Page ‘News’ Ad at Times Stirs Controversy

0

The front page of Thursday’s Los Angeles Times included a major feature story on LAPD cop Ben Sherman, chronicling the rookie’s rough first day on the job.

It’s not unlike the kind of personality profiles that frequently grace the newspaper’s “Column One” feature. But Sherman, however, isn’t real – he’s the lead character in NBC’s “Southland.” It’s part of a large, six-column ad appeared under the fold of the L.A. Times’ front page on April 9.

The fake news story was marked as an advertisement. But that didn’t placate the newspaper’s critics, many of whom have taken the L.A. Times to task in the past for blurring the line between editorial and advertising.




Read the

Los Angeles Times’

coverage of the controversy.




Read an earlier

Variety

story on the issue.

No posts to display