In a somewhat mysterious story on product placement in newspapers and magazines, Media Daily News says that newspapers including the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune have all accepted fees for product placement.

The report projects consumer magazines will take in $15.6 million worth of paid product placement deals in 2005, an increase of 68.6 percent from 2004, making that sector the fastest growing of all forms of media product placement. Paid product placements in newspapers, meanwhile, are on track to grow 67.0 percent to $4.7 million. While those numbers are small for newspapers, the presence of any paid placements would seem troubling for editors or [sic] pride themselves on presenting objective news content that supposedly is not influenced by advertisers or other business interests.

But some newspapers publishers are finding creative means of integrating brands into their news well, including so-called “shadow” placements, in which brand images, logos or icons appear as watermarks on heavily type-ridden pages, such as stock and weather pages.

Although I read all of the newspapers mentioned, some regularly and some occasionally, any product placement beyond GOP talking points — which are often presented as news and don’t cost the party anything beyond fax or ISP costs — has escaped my notice.

And although the practice strikes me as completely reprehensible for all the reasons one might think — the corruption of journalistic independence, integrity, etc. — I would like to announce that in my never-ending quest to become a real journalist, BTC News will henceforth be available for paid product placements. And not just some sneaky semi-subliminal crap like watermarks or spelling out a product name with the first letter of each sentence: I’ll actually name whatever it is.

For instance, in the event that the words “Christopher Hitchens” ever darken these pixels again, a small fee will guarantee that the words “Macallan single malt Scotch” will appear in close proximity. One might see something along the lines of, “Perhaps the sodden prose that Christopher Hitchens passes off as writing these days could be enlivened by a switch to 35 year old Macallan single malt Scotch whiskey from whatever rotgut he keeps in his desk drawer.”

For a somewhat larger fee, the words “Diet Pepsi” could appear in close proximity to the words “Karl Rove;” one might see something like, “Although a diet might dangerously agitate the already homicidal Karl Rove, the porcine political assassin could benefit from switching to his mouthpiece’s favorite beverage, Diet Pepsi.”

The possibilities are pretty much endless, and I’d like to get my hands on a chunk of that $4.7 million headed toward the newspapers. So to the proud manufacturers of various unnecessary products, I say, why try to sneak the placements in when you can get a blatant mention in a semi-popular blog? Heck, I’ll even link to your web site.

And for just a few dollars more, we’ll slip a little something into Eric’s White House dispatches.

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