know | Future

The New York Times announced yesterday that it plans to start offering “shadow ads” layed down like a watermark under editorial content. Though they are starting by just placing a corporate logo under the stock listings (now, really, does anybody under the age of eighty still read those?) and they promise on a stack of bibles that they will only use it for special occassions (huh?). This is a bad symbolic move as the only edge that a place like the NY Times has is its respectability and that is too fragile now to be bruised by this blurring of content and advertising. The fact that other media outlets are doing it with entertainment doesn’t mean they should be doing it with news. I guess nobody cares anymore though.