Nothing new about that, you may think, since newspapers routinely run ads for themselves, describing the wonderful things you can read in their pages.

But this is different, since our local monopoly newspaper is buying ads for others.

The Seattle Times Co. purchased a full-page ad in Wednesday's newspaper supporting Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna.

The ad is part of an independent-expenditure campaign with no coordination between the paper and the campaign, according to a statement from The Seattle Times.  The ad appears on page B6 and says McKenna is a "choice that will make us all proud" and praises the candidate's time as Washington state's attorney general.  The advertisement states that "no candidate authorized this ad. It is paid for by The Seattle Times Company."
. . .
The company will also run a similar campaign supporting Referendum 74, which would legalize same-sex marriage.  Fisco said that the two campaigns are a "a business decision that is completely separate from journalism functions of the newspaper.  The ads will be clearly identified as ads and there is no intersection between the advertising and our editorial commentary or news reporting."

As you may already have guessed, many journalists at the Times are unhappy about the decision.

More than 100 reporters, photographers, designers and other staffers signed a letter protesting The Seattle Times Co.'s decision to support the campaigns of Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna and a gay marriage referendum.
. . .
In the letter, the staffers said the ad campaign threatens to compromise the newsroom's integrity, pointing out the newspaper company has now become a top contributor to McKenna's campaign by running the ad.

Executive editor David Boardman says the newspaper has just as much integrity as it always had.  On that, he and I mostly agree, although we arrive at that conclusion by different paths.  (Mostly, because, among other things, the newspaper has never recovered from losing Mindy Cameron as editorial page editor.)

As someone who supports free speech — even for news corporations — I have no objection to these ads.

But I do think that the journalists at the Times, from Boardman on down, are missing the obvious:  Many readers gave up trusting them years ago.  (For some recent evidence, they could take a look at these Gallup findings.)

Cross posted at Jim Miller on Politics.