Our Ads Make a Mockery of Your Site

We’d laugh if it weren’t so true:

DEARBORN, MI—Ford Motor Company officials chastised news and commentary website Masthead.com Friday, conceding they were embarrassed to be associated with a publication that would allow the entirety of its award-winning content to be hidden behind splashy, distracting ads for the Ford F-150.

According to the car manufacturer, Masthead ’s decision to allow the “garish” full-screen advertisement—in which a red pickup speeds across news articles, overrunning them with tire-tread marks until readers manage to find the tiny “close” button—suggests the media outlet has zero respect not only for itself, but also for the amount of work that goes into its astute political and cultural coverage.

“They should be ashamed of themselves for letting us come in, plaster our logo everywhere, and, for a measly 50 grand, pretty much destroy the reputation they’ve worked so hard to build,” said Erin Robertson, an ad buyer for Ford who scoffed when Masthead immediately agreed to all of her terms and even suggested its creative staff could write articles mentioning the F-150. “Their coverage of the debt crisis has been pretty insightful, but then they cheapen it by allowing us to completely obscure their writing with a video of a truck bounding over sand dunes.”

Via… The Onion, of course.