Political ads are not news coverage

The public feud between state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Gov. Eliot Spitzer took an interesting turn this week when Bruno accused a newspaper of attempting to extort money out of him.

Bruno made the extortion allegation after one of his aides received a phone call from an advertising representative for the Times Union, which a couple of days earlier had published a report calling into question Bruno's use of state vehicles. The advertising department was apparently offering to sell Bruno political advertising space.

Bruno's version and the newspaper's version of the precise nature of the call are at odds, and unless someone has a recording of the conversation, we may never know the exact truth.