For instance, read this:

Some editors at The Dallas Morning News have started reporting directly to executives outside the newsroom who oversee advertising sales, under a restructuring that overturns longstanding traditions in American newspapers aimed at shielding news judgments from business concerns.

A memo sent to employees on Wednesday explains the creation of new positions with the title of general manager, each responsible for ad sales in particular parts of the paper. “In the sports and entertainment segments, the senior news editors will report directly to the G.M. while retaining a strong reporting relationship to the editor and managing editor,” the memo said.

In an interview, Bob Mong, the editor of The Morning News, stressed that no other parts of the paper would report to people outside the newsroom, though advertising managers had been assigned to work with several other areas, like health, education, travel and real estate. Asked if there were plans to apply the structure in sports and entertainment to other parts of the paper, he said, “not at this time.”

And now read this:

Back in the early 1960s I covered the District Building (Washington’s City Hall) for the old Washington Daily News, a conservative paper in the Scripps Howard chain. City licensing officials, I learned one day, were investigating complaints of false advertising and fraud against the city’s new car dealers.

After finding that the allegations were true, I handed in a three-part series. Among my examples were fraudulent ads from the Daily News itself, new car dealers being among the largest sources of advertising revenue for all metropolitan papers.

But the city desk let the story stand. The morning the first installment appeared, so did the paper’s editor-in-chief John O’Rourke — followed by two angry-looking strangers. It was rare to see him before lunch. In two years at the paper, I had never actually met the man.

Minutes after O’Rourke had disappeared into his office, his secretary called to summon me. On my way in, I passed by the desk of a veteran reporter. “Good luck, kid,” he said. “You’ve just written a one-part three-part series.”

Inside O’Rourke’s office were the managing editor, the two strangers, and, even more ominously, the business manager. “Can you back up everything you’ve got. young fellow?” O’Rourke asked. I said yes. “Good,” O’Rourke said. “Now beat it.”

The series ran as written.