The Democratic presidential campaigns of John Edwards and John Kerry have one thing in common: the racial make-up of their TV ads depends on where you watch them. An Edwards ad about job losses "running in Ohio... would be identical to one it ran in South Carolina last month if not for one thing" -- in the Ohio ad, the factory worker is white, but in South Carolina, the worker was black.

Today's Wall Street Journal reports on a new advertising trend: "The most obvious alternative to TV clutter, placing products within shows, is generating some backlash among viewers. Marketers and media buyers see the 'situ-mercial' as a promising alternative." What is a situ-mercial? It's a commercial designed to look, sound and feel just like the show it's interrupting. For example, a car insurance commercial set in a jail cell is airing during court shows and dramas.

Traditional journalists love to criticize the reliability of information found on the Internet, but Paul Carr points out that traditional journalism is feeding some of the Internet's worst offenders: "Thanks to people like Drudge, the internet is turning into a gigantic gossip laundering operation for cowardly print hacks. Heard a juicy rumour about a presidential candidate? Know it's probably total rubbish but want to print it anyway? No problem!