What value do news­pa­pers add to inform­a­tion? A couple of days ago, I book­marked this piece on product place­ment, from the New York Times. Basic­ally, it’s about cof­fee cups appear­ing on the desk dur­ing a local morn­ing news show in Las Vegas.

The Las Vegas Sun repor­ted it first on Monday:

Oooooooh, they’re call­ing out your name.

Two cups of McDonald’s iced cof­fee (BUY!) sit on the Fox 5 TV news desk, a punch-you-in-the-face product place­ment (BUY!) to chase down your morn­ing news.

Quoted? Fox 5 news dir­ector, Adam Brad­shaw, and Kelly McBride of the journ­al­ism eth­ics outi­fit, Poynter. The New York Times hat tips the Las Vegas Sun, ditches the breezy style — and the line that the cof­fee and ice cubes are fake — and clocks up eight quoted sources in under a thou­sand words. Con­tinue read­ing →