Scooped by an ad

At least we can be proud of the separation between advertising and editorial.

Last week's Voice broke the story that the Navy had taken the official position that it intended to tear down Hangar One. Unfortunately for those of us who have some modicum of pride in our newsgathering abilities, this story was broken not in the news section but in a legal notice. That's right, an advertisement.

The public has been waiting for this story for nearly a year, but no one noticed the ad until members of the Save Hangar One Committee got wind of it. Steve Williams reprinted the text of the ad on his blog Moffett Users, and the Daily News published a story today that the Merc also carried. (I was going to post on this earlier but had my fingers crossed that the competition was not on the same listservers).

This is the first time in my career (or probably anyone else's) that I have ever lost out on a story to a paid advertisement. It is probably a good time to be quitting the profession.