Who Let This Gun Show Ad Run Next to a Story About Sandy Hook Students?

The students of Sandy Hook Elementary returned to school Thursday morning, and someone at one of the most prominent nearby newspapers let an advertisement for a local gun show slip by... on the same page as an article about that.

The students of Sandy Hook Elementary returned to school Thursday morning, and someone at one of the most prominent nearby newspapers let an advertisement for a local gun show slip by... on the same page as an article about that.

A reader photo reportedly shows the page from the Stamford Advocate — it's a little hard to tell given that the image is blurry — running this story about an already emotional day at the former Chalk Hill School in nearby Monroe, next to an ad for for the East Coast Fine Arms Show, set to take place over the weekend. User Bekim Ukperaj tweeted an image of the page to BuzzFeed.

This is not the first time a newspaper has done something similar, but the fact that the Advocate is a prominent Connecticut-based publication comes off as particularly insensitive in wake of the tragedy.

We've put in a call to Hearst Connecticut Newspapers Executive Editor Barbara Roessner and Advocate publisher Michelle McAbee to see what they have to say. Stay tuned for updates.

Update: Roessner responded to Romenesko in an email:

Our newspapers should not be running gun ads — including ads for antique and collectible gun shows — next to stories about Sandy Hook. It’s insensitive, and it shouldn’t have happened. It was an oversight, and we apologize for it. We have taken steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again.