I remember that a respected West Coast newspaper contacted my tiny retail store about doing some advertising with them in the mid 90s. The sales person actually

I remember that a respected West Coast newspaper contacted my tiny retail store about doing some advertising with them in the mid 90s. The sales person actually said it that if I placed a certain amount of advertising with them, I would have a reporter come out and do a human interest story for the local section of the paper. Talk about native advertising! Since then I've learned to expect that at least 80% of the stories in papers are planted stories. That is they are stories whose ideas and information is provided by PR firms. The best ones are the ones where it is not obvious. A recent crazy but is it? example: national quasi-public radio here in Eastern Europe has been running reports on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investm... They sent a reporter to USA to interview what seems to be overwhelming pro TTIP sources. A public radio station struggling for funds sending a reporter on a month long junket? Something does not vibe right here. I am hoping the financing comes from some EU public fund and not something even more nefarious. This reminds of the time that US paid journalists if they run anti-drug stories. Here's a very leftist source but I assume the facts are correct: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2005/01/will-j13.html http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2005/01/will-j13.html