I guess it's a bit strange, but I would think that part of her job as "general advertising manager" is trying to sell lucrative ads in the Oregonian. I'm sure she must go over ad options with a lot of people.

Her connection to the Grocery Association looks a little off, but it's not as if the the "No" campaign wasn't going to buy ads in the Oregonian anyway. If they weren't dealing with her at the O, or if the Grocers weren't their biggest contributor, the campaign would still be buying advertising in the Oregonian one would think.

Yeah, I mean, if I were networking to sell ads, I'd join the boards of as many professional organizations as I could to get my feet in the checkbook. I'd make a great ad sales rep. I've always thought so. Might have to avoid insulting quite so many people and mouthing off, of course, but...well...okay. Forget it.

But when you're talking about changing the paper's lifelong policy on accepting political ads, the close relationship between the general ad sales manager and the political campaign, and its funder, does seem to be a significant issue.

I think the ethical angle Matt is implying is that the O (presumably through her approval) chose to run an ad full of lies for the "no" side, yet then justified censoring the "yes" side's corrections because it didn't pass, ahem, "fact-checking."

Ethical? Maybe. Shady? Definitely.