This morning I was reading my local paper, The Record of Bergen County, N.J., and I saw the following headline:

OK. That's interesting. The Record is saying now's the time to buy a new home. I'm no economist, but I was curious because given what I've been reading about the current housing market being at just the beginning of a correction, I figured it would be better to wait until prices really come down.

The Wall Street Journal had a story today that discussed this:

"The housing correction is just in its early stages now," said Joseph Carson of AllianceBernstein, who forecast a 5% decline for 2007. "Existing home prices have come down to no-change on a year-to-year basis. For new homes, prices are below year-ago levels when you include added features. The prices will have to go lower to give demand a lift in short term."

Mr. Carson expects broad-based difficulties throughout the nation. "Affordability is an issue across the board," he said, adding he believes a major correction is inevitable. "It's pretty clear now that national home prices will drop to correct housing imbalances," said Scott Anderson of Wells Fargo & Co.

So I opened up the "Special Section" to find out more. This is what I found:

I felt like I'd been had. You can click on the image above for a closer view, but basically this was a special ADVERTISING section -- clearly labeled at the bottom of the section. But the headline on Page 1 said nothing about this. In my opinion, "special section" is not the same as saying "advertising."

As a former journalist, this made me cringe. Even worse, from a communications perspective, I think it's a bad idea. If any communicaton leaves the intended audience feeling duped, that's just ineffective. Not only will the advertisement fail to be considered by the reader, but he or she will think twice about anything the publication says in the future.

It's a simple issue of reputation.