The Detroit Free Press, of Michigan, United States, may have sparked a firestorm last week when it admitted to fulfilling corporate requests to coordinate the placement of a Target store ad with stories on education, MinnPost reported Tuesday. The MinnPost's article, denying similar practices, was prompted by a story on the subject published by The Wall Street Journal on November 2.

In the article, The Wall Street Journal questioned the ethics of taking editorial suggestions from commercial interests outside the newsroom despite the evident opportunity to maximise an advertiser's return on investment such a practice would represent. Meanwhile, The MinnPost, of Minnesota, United States, is a nonprofit entity, funded by several charitable organisations, fundamentally altering its business model from that historically followed by a commercial newsgathering enterprise.