We know what we are - we're just negotiating the price

Want to comment on a candidate for public office and have your voice heard in southeast Missouri? Then just plunk down $25, and the seMissourian will be happy to publish up to 150 words from you (each additional word, 50 cents more).

(Letters about ballot issues continue to get a free ride.)

Prevously, the paper had eschewed all such letters because of their "tone," editorial page editor Joe Sullivan wrote earlier this month. "Because of the tone of too many of these letters, the Southeast Missourian has adhered to its policy of not publishing any such letters rather than picking and choosing some."

Which then raises some interesting questions:
-- It was not OK to print these letters because you had to exercise some journalistic judgment?
-- But now that it's open to whoever has $25 to spare, no judgment need be applied? After all, money talks and nobody walks.
-- So if a thousand people agree to pay, you'll print everything?

There is a word for this.