That's not how it works. The ad department isn't supposed to influence how things are covered, but they very commonly know what's coming up precisely for this

That's not how it works. The ad department isn't supposed to influence how things are covered, but they very commonly know what's coming up precisely for this reason, to find advertisers who want to run adjacent ads. So that part is normal. But sabatoging the subject of editorial with ad content is definitely not normal, and this ad rep's behavior would be totally out of line at any traditional media outlet for that reason.