Readers who opened the pages of South Carolina's Rock Hill Herald were in for a shock. (Photo below.)
Embedded in coverage of the Sandy Hook shooting, which took the lives of 20 children under the age of seven and seven adults, was a large gun ad for a pre-Christmas arms sale.
Editor Paul Osmundson issued an apology for the distasteful A5 placement, saying, "Please be assured that this was neither intentional nor the fault of the advertiser ... Advertisements are usually placed days before the newspaper lands on your doorstep ... Multiple editors worked on the page and should have noticed the problem. We all made a terrible mistake, and for that I apologize."
Although the Herald wasn't the only paper to be criticized for running gun ads this weekend. Jim Romenesko noted that the Allentown Morning Call had headlines about the tragedy on A1 and a large gun ad on B1.
Please follow Advertising on Twitter and Facebook.