Boring but relevant
I've worked in newspaper ad departments. From the point of view of the page planners (the people who stick ads in the paper) they're just spaces with serial numbers. You stick a 15 x 2 ad in on page 20, and that's all you know, rather than knowing that you're sticking a gun ad next to an article about a school shooting.
Of course, ideally you would check, but when editions are being closed late because of a big breaking news story or last minute advertising demand, there isn't time to thoroughly check the context of every ad versus the page content.
TLDR: It's probably some stressed newspaper employee on a deadline trying to fit ads into the edition without paying attention to where they are going to run.
(, Mon 17 Dec 2012, 10:42, Reply)