BP, following on the heels of Morgan Stanley, has adopted a policy of pulling advertising from publications that give the company bad press, and requiring publications to give BP prepub look-sees if it is mentioned in cover stories, AdWeek reports.

This strikes me as unbelievably stupid and abusive, since magazines are in a very weak position to reject major ad buys from these guys. It's funny that there is so much talk about journalistic ethics, and about how Newsweek must hate America, when corporations are free to abuse the power of the buck.

AdWeek quotes an unnamed publishing exec: "I think it's OK to have systems in place to pull advertisers out, but clearly we don't show them stories ahead of time. ... It's a stupid request. It makes you think these guys are hiding something."