By David L. Grey

Media Watch

“DAILY NEWS STAFF FEEDING FRENZY happens regularly at Cafe ____ [name deleted] and you should go there too. They have great pizza, salad and lots of other good stuff. Try it, and you’ll become a repeat customer too.”

Normally a media-watching columnist for a Los Altos weekly would not single out a sometimes very real “competitor” - in this case, a Jan. 31 Palo Alto Daily News advertisement.

But this ad - in the very back of that paper in a regular section called “Absolutely” - too well illustrates the concern about yet another aspect of today’s business of journalism: How at times ads can be mixed too closely with news and editorial content.

There is no question the Daily News’ page is labeled “ADVERTISING SECTION.” But it is done in very small type while the pages look and initially read much like short summary news items.

A serious problem? Perhaps not here and for those accustomed to that daily’s ways. But it reflects a practice many in journalism thought had been talked out and mostly resolved years ago.

That ethical issue - clear-firm separation of news and editorial content from paid-for space or time - has become increasingly muddied.

We’re not talking about the more blatant mixing of advertising with entertainment, such as in “infomercials” on television or placement of products in motion pictures, at concerts and sporting events, even team logos.

These raise enough ethical concerns of their own, but the news itself and its producers have “always” supposedly been purer, committed to as much independence as possible from financial influences and conflicts of interest.

Blame expanding commercialism on the Internet and Information ages, large corporation media ownerships, even capitalistic free enterprise.

Another local example: KCBS All News radio’s increased use of its news anchors and other recognizable news voices to tape commercials, typically for charities and non-profits as a form of public service but then with occasional awkward overlapping with major news about these very same groups.

Other KCBS news-staff-read ads are even more business-related, such as the ongoing attempts by Nevada to lure corporations to that state by special treatment.

Even respected CBS News commentator Charles Osgood sometimes breaks into his worldly radio observations by shifting quickly into his sales pitches.

And last fall, ABC News’ Barbara Walters generated all kinds of mixed reviews when she hawked Campbell’s soup as a talk show host on ABC-TV’s “The View.”

Herein may lie little surprise. Big name journalists have become marketable celebrities too, right up there with other rich newsmakers.

Is there clear separation of communication powers and purposes? Hardly.

How does the Town Crier seem to measure up on its separating of ads from news? We all are invited to read, study and then assess to decide that one on our own.

David L. Grey, Ph.D., of Mountain View, is professor emeritus of journalism at San Jose State University , where he taught and researched on media law and ethics. He can be reached at: greyline@pacbell.net