The Los Angeles Times now embeds e-commerce links within online articles in hopes of revenue boosts.

The new e-commerce links for sites like Amazon.com appear within the text of LAT articles but in green, rather than the old standby blue. According to StinkyJournalism.org, the green links are only published in health, image, food, travel, books, entertainment and sports articles, in addition to photo galleries and select blogs.  Each story with an embedded link is to be accompanied by a disclaimer statement.

News outlets are constantly faced with the strain of finding new sources of revenue, but is this the way to go? Sure, the old model is deteriorating, but what prevents news sites from including certain editorial material for the exclusive purpose of  beefing up e-commerce revenues?

Read more at StinkyJournalism.org