A horrible day on all fronts ...

Maybe the ad and its placement had little to do with the advertising or editorial staffs at all. Who knows anymore?

SunSentinel_Portal - Advertise with the Sun Sentinel

I doubt that's the case, given that this was a 6 x 4(ish), front-page ad. But, in trying to find out ad rates for the Sun Sentinel (without calling them) because I was wondering how accurate ChrisLong's guess of $25,000 was, I happened to run into that, and I thought it interesting that clients could, essentially, place their own ads.

And, based on my cursory research, I think that guess probably wasn't too far off. I'm thinking it was probably around a $20,000 ad.

Given that figure, or anything close to it, the editors, indeed, probably weren't thinking about it at all. Because that ad size, and placement, was what the client paid for. Not knowing, of course, what, exactly, would be among the editorial offerings for that day. But still, the client paid for a six-column, front-page ad.