Don’t like the news stories about your organization?  Or, think that newspapers are ignoring your organization’s work?

Apparently, now you can simply pay newspapers to cover your organization and control its public image.

Several California universities recently signed contracts with the Orange County Register to publish features on their schools.

According to NPR: “earlier this year, the newspaper’s executives offered three schools a deal: Pay us $275,000, and we will give you a year’s worth of weekly sections — filled with feel-good features, smiling pictures of students and guest columns written by faculty. Chapman University, the University of California, Irvine and California State University, Fullerton all signed on.”

The practice of paying for newspaper coverage raises serious questions about whether news organizations can still deliver news information at all. Journalistic standards continue to deteriorate as print and online newspapers rapidly evolve.

For universities to use such methods suggests a corruption of their educational roles by marketing units within university administrations.

NPR reports on this story.