In the midst of a year that has seen a truly existential crisis for print journalism, it’s instructive to ask ourselves just what kind of paper product newspapers are selling these days. The photo above is what landed on my front stoop last Sunday. Inside the advertising bag was a free sample of what’s reputed to be some of the most absorbent pulp money can buy … plus the San Francisco Chronicle.
Today, front-page advertisements, stick-on come-ons and plastic-wrap billboards are becoming de rigueur for some of our most beloved metro dailies. Those of us aghast at community institutions renamed, for example, "Pac Bell Park" (then, "AT&T Park"), might begin to wonder, can the Sunday PG&E Chronicle be far behind? How long will readers put up with such intrusive ads shrouding the news they’re paying for?
