Otterblog

I try to keep OTTERBLOG focused on local journalism, but there’s an interesting cautionary tale of the intersection between old and new media that’s too funny to pass up ...

Yesterday, I was looking at the Romenesko Web site run by the Poynter Institute. It’s a good clearinghouse for journalism news, gossip and reporting/writing ideas. A story about “The Pot Farm next door” caught my eye. It’s a well-written story about how marijuana growing, once the purview of country folks, has moved to the cities and suburbs. So I read it and thought about whether there’s a house in Ardmore or Sherwood Forest or Advance that is really just a shell used to grow pot ...

The story is out of the Daytona Beach News-Journal in Florida, which is a pretty decent independent paper. And like a lot of papers, its online paper is a mishmash of ads and journalism. They have some sort of partnership or arrangement with Google in terms of advertising, in that the stories and keywords in the story (my guess) help generate the footnote ads at the bottom of the story. For example, a short on an elderly person being bilked was followed by four little teaser ads for background checks and the like. Or a piece on a surfboard had links to tsunami and hurricane relief. You get the idea. The logic isn’t always crystal clear.

So at the bottom of this article about an entrepreneurial dope grower who got 10 years for building a suburban agri(evil)empire, the Google computers ended up with four ads for companies selling hydroponic supplies, closet systems, grow-lamps, etc. All the stuff you would need to grow marijuana in your house.

And so it goes ...