I had a friend who used to work for the Miami Herald. They referred to the space not taken up by advertising as the "news hole." Kind of puts right into perspective the actual goals of the paper doesn't it. I'm sure that's probably a common industry term.

I'd be willing to bet the advertising and editorial departments have no idea what each other are doing and they are just filling spaces on a computer screen that doesn't really show them the whole picture. So I'd bet neither advertising or editorial were aware of such a colossal faux pas until it ran off the presses.

Not an excuse but just my thinking out loud on how it could have happened.

It may have been done off shore. I have heard on public radio that papers use Indian and Phillpino people to write for US papers.

Why not the layout to?

The non-ad space has been called "the news hole" since time immemorial. BUT!!! We were very sensitive to the placement of ads; for example, you would never place an ad for a funeral home next to an ad for a restaurant.

There is no excuse for what this paper did. In Oklahoma City, no less.

process. Sometimes there's a last-minute change that makes it impossible to be sensitive to such things. Some ads also pay for placement and it's impossible to move the ad. It's a finite space that is built around immovable objects (such as color spots, front and back pages, and inside pages, such as editorial pages, that are in the same place every time), and sometimes things aren't going to work as well as we would like.

ETA: Your "dumber than a sack of rocks comment" annoys me because copy editors/page designers definitely get the short end of the muddy stick at newspapers. The person who did that was probably dealing with a rotten schedule, a CBA full of concessions, buggy software, outdated hardware, and the night cleaners vacuuming around them as they worked. If my experience is typical, anyway.

I have worked in the publishing business since 1978. And the placement of ads cannot be changed after they have reached the printer. I was a copy editor (retired now), and many times I would discover an error that needed to be corrected, but everything was already at the printer and it was too late to change it.

I commented upthread, but things have become increasingly difficult in the last ten years, and I've changed careers since then.

Still, this juxtaposition was pretty heinous. It really was.

there was extremely poor communication between the ad people the news people. Is it too much to ask that someone (i.e. the person doing the ad layout for the paper), knowing that the news has primarily been focused on the Colorado shooting would stop to think that perhaps the news group needs to be made aware that there was a full page gun ad in the paper today and that maybe someone should look to see where the articles relating to Colorado are being placed? Had the ad department talked with the news department it would not have taken rocket science to try to relocate the Colorado article if the gun ad could not be moved. It may not always be possible to move things around but I would hope that someone would notice and try to make an effort. Of course Oklahoma has such a gun culture that a lot of people might not have noticed the faux pas.

advertising. In most newsrooms, it is not considered acceptable for ad people to wander into the newsroom and ask about story inclusion or placement. That's a line that many people on both sides try to blur, but many hold the line just as hard.

As a copy editor, the idea of an ad person dropping by my cubicle to talk about story placement and ad placement makes my hackles rise. If the largest jump space is across from the gun ad, then of course the biggest story of the day is going to jump to that page.

Sure, it's awkward and gross and I'll bet you there was some talk about it in the morning meeting. But it's not worth pointing fingers, castigating, or sending to Reddit, as others have suggested in this thread.

ETA: I see I'm too late to dissuade you. Ah, well.

which should give you an idea of who it is regarded around here.

And the smaller the newspaper, the fewer the pages, and the fewer options you have for moving things around. A full-page ad isn't so common anymore, and you don't want to fuck around with it. Newspapers are built on the fly, and a good team knows how to aim for 90 percent awesome instead of 100 every time, because you simply don't have enough time to aim for 100 percent awesome. Sometimes the 10 percent will be awkward and unfortunate.

That shit will go viral.

try to send it to Reddit when I get home.