SF Examiner and Independent agree to label restaurant reviews as ads

Grade the News reports that the San Francisco Examiner and Independent have agreed to label as advertising a restaurant news column that has been running in the papers for years.

Great quotes:

• "Yes, I use the column as an initiative to get advertisers to run an ad," Mr. Habit said. "The paper gives me a free rein."
• Mr. Habit said he occasionally writes about restaurants that he has no hope of selling an ad to. "I do that to have the pages look more ethical," he said.
• Mr. Habit said that when he started working for the now-defunct Peninsula Times-Tribune, "It let me do it without any advertising label on top." The paper at the time was owned by the Tribune Company. "And the Chicago Tribune, that’s an ethical operation."