oh wait, ads are everywhere already, including to the right and left of where I'm currently typing. boohoo.

Just what do you watch the news for, home furnishing tips?

Porn movies have paid product placement for lube...

I don't see much difference.

or, the Stranger CONSTANTLY praising and mentioning their favorite watering holes/advertisers...

Lube, Liberty or McDonalds craplattes...what's the diff?

This completely defeats the purpose of advertisements. If all ads were "quarantined in ad-specific places", ads would become totally ineffective.

I assume you have a recommendation in to the owners of your paper that all of the advertisements be placed in the back pages to create a quarantined ad-only area. Good luck with that one.

What would Dan Devone do?

I mean, other than PBS, which I watch on Comcast OnDemand for free, I pretty much skip it except for disaster news and election night.

Maybe they should realize they're just turning off the viewing public, and aren't half as interesting as The Daily Show, which I do watch.

At least when it comes to pass we will have actual full-length shows instead of 44-minute hours.

My vote is for John Carlson. As my coworker just perfectly described him, "an ace prick if I ever heard one."

Remember the good old days when EVERYBODY HAD JOBS AND MONEY and weezerly poorness didn't bring on heartache and corporate firings by HATCHET MEN HELL BENT ON BLOWJOBS?????

I mean give me a break for nigh-eve-eh-tay' IN DICTIONARY SKILLS and what I will and won't suffer on behalf of my loyalty to discretion, computer intruders from without,LIES, LYING and THE LIARS who LIE about LYING DOWN with the hackers on corporate privatized computers even if it is my fault!

GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE BEDROOM IF YOUR NOT INVITED IN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!

....of course unless it's in defense of gentrification of the soon to be elderly ANN COULTER!

This completely crosses a line. Once you start doing product placement as part of the news, the news looses any credibility.

Product placement in entertainment is an annoying but accepted practice. I suppose if you look at news as entertainment, and not a source for unbiased reporting, then it really doesn't matter. But any claim at being unbiased goes right out the window if the newscasters are shlepping products at the newsdesk.

I'm not saying I like it, but we've seen product placement in movies for years. It's not new. And it's going to get much worse before it gets better.

To answer your (presumably) rhetorical question @26: news media outlets have traditionally maintained a very strict separation between editorial and advertising content. That way it was understood that, while corporations were free to purchase advertising, it would have no relation to, or influence on the news content. But, with on-camera product placement that whole paradigm now gets thrown out the proverbial window.

With the wall down between the advertising and editorial, there's not even a semblence of editorial objectivity or journalistic independence left for the news department: If, as you suggest, McDonald's is putting Big Macs on the desks of local news anchors - and paying for the opportunity - what is the likelihood that you'll hear a report about, say, the detrimental health effects of eating fast food?

And THAT's why product placement, particularly on news programs (whatever else you may think of the merits of such programs) is a really, really BAD idea.

I'm dismayed you don't recognize the difference between a) honest advertising b) the honest expression of a preference and c) accepting money to pretend you have a preference. Yes, Stranger writers talk up things they like, because they LIKE them. If a newscaster really wants to drink McDonald's coffee—well, that'd be in questionable taste, but it's not the same as taking a check to pretend she likes McDonald's coffee.

The latter, what's happening in this story, is on the same moral footing as me accepting money from a theater to give it a favorable review. It's more subtle, but it's the same thing. It's called bribery, and any newscaster with a conscience and a brain should refuse to participate.

Media talking heads and politicians should be reqiured to wear NASCAR style pajamas, with their sponsor's logo patches sewn all over them.

Maybe the top anchormen and women could have a succession of plastic corporate logo baseball caps put on and taken off their heads as the news rolls on, just like NASCAR drivers have to do in victory lane.

Excuse me while I grab a drink at Liberty, head over to Neumo's for another, stop in at Cap Hill Fish Fry for dinner and then finish it off with a nightcap at Havana.

Nice doing business with you.