Sponsored articles, also called "native advertising" and "advertorials" by insiders, are a hot-button issue among journalists, bloggers and media ethicists. The phrases refer to paid online content that resembles news coverage.

They're part of the search by publishers to develop new revenue sources to support newspaper and magazines battered by a sharp drop in print ads. While the boundaries between news and promotions ads are redrawn, one line remains firm: Paid content must be labeled. So says the Federal Trade Commission, editors, outside commentators and even publishers.

Alas, cracks can open -- as the Detroit Free Press learned Monday morning when Jalopnik tagged it in this tweet linking to a post at its national news site:

The "article" about car dealers' supposedly successful social media use was from by G/O Digital, a Gannett local digital marketing subsidiary in Chicago and Phoenix.

Here's part of what Patrick George writes at Jalopnik:

Two Gannett-owned newspapers recently ran the same piece of sponsored content: an article called "Car buyers test-drive dealers on social media."  

There's a good chance you don't care whether car dealers can get people to like their Facebook pages or not, but at least USA Today told you ahead of time that the article is sponsored so you can really, really not care. That's a kindness the Detroit Free Press seemingly didn't do for its readers.

The USA Today piece has a disclaimer at the top and bottom saying it's a sponsored post "provided and presented by our sponsor"; the Freep's identical piece doesn't. . . .

There's nothing there to indicate the story is a sponsored post and even the byline — By Amanda MacArthur, G/O Digital (via USA TODAY) — makes you think it came from a legitimate source. . . . It shows the slippery-slope nature of sponsored content. See how easy it is to disguise a paid advertisement as something written by an actual journalist? How do you know where your "news" is coming from? . . .

it's awfully strange that its sponsored nature wasn't disclosed to readers. I'm willing to bet it was an accident, something that comes down the pipeline from a Gannett server and goes up automatically.

Turns out that was a safe bet, as the Freep's new director of digital audience development replies. Jalopnik adds the response as an update.

George acknowledges that his "gotcha" item is about "a pretty harmless story, and a boring one most people won't bother to read." He also notes that his site and others in the Gawker Media group are well-acquainted with paid content that resembles regular posts -- "but we say whether they're sponsored or not."

This topic also made news in May when Jill Abramson was booted as New York Times executive editor. One point of conflict with the publisher reportedly was over native advertising, according to New York magazine:

“She was morally opposed to that,” an executive said. “She told me it would not happen on her watch.” 

She lost that fight.

Read more: Jalopnik