Time marches on: Perhaps my favorite unanticipated benefit from maintaining this weblog is the “memory well” it provides me when I “recollect” something from the past that is connected to something “new.” For example, the Advertising Age article that I pointed to this morning, “Marketers Press for Product Placement in Magazine Text” regarding the “blurring lines” between magazine editorial and advertising made me immediately recall a post I made in 2002 that linked to a page-one article in the Wall Street Journal, “Time Inc.’s Southern Progress Weds Editorial and Ad Units.”

That WSJ article from two years ago said:

Many publications take pains to separate ads and editorial — often referred to as “church” and “state” — to avoid conflicts of interest. That way readers can assume that a pricey window appears in a house feature because the editors chose it for quality and style. Southern Progress is different. “There is no church and state,” says Michael Carlton, a former Southern Progress editor. “They all sit in the same church, maybe in different pews.”

Contrast that statement with the quote in today’s Advertising Age piece:

“From a Time Inc. perspective, I don’t see a world where we’re going to have product roundups as pure editorial that are going to have any bias towards any specific advertiser,” said Time Inc.’s executive vice president, Jack Haire.