L.A. TIMES COVERS FRONT PAGE WITH DISNEY AD

The beleaguered Los Angeles Times came under fire on Wednesday for devoting nearly half of its front page to an ad for Disney’s Frozen — a “garishly unattractive” one at that, said the website LAObserved.com. Said the website’s editor, Kevin Roderick: “This is the first time I remember the Times (or any other top U.S. newspaper) dropping half of the content on its actual front page for an ad _ in this case for an advertiser the paper regularly covers and a movie it will also cover.” Joshua Benton, head of Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab, grumbled on Twitter, “I hope the LA Times was well compensated for this.” Actor Rob Lowe also took to Twitter, posting a picture of the newspaper’s front page and commenting, “In case anyone thought print media was still relevant.” Times spokesperson Nancy Sullivan defended the ad in an email to the Poynter journalism school in St. Petersburg, FL, noting that the Times has “had a number of innovating campaigns on [page] A1” in recent years.