As the tragedy of the Costa Concordia plays out, newspapers still need to sell ads.  Recently some of the juxtapositions have been, well, unfortunate. (Click on any of the thumbnails below for a larger image.)

Italy’s Il Gazzettino featured a story about the Costa Concordia on the front page while displaying a full page ad for a cruise on the back of the tabloid paper  — “WIN a cruise for the best day of your life.”

A close runner-up is the front page of a the Belfast Telegraph with a banner across the top reading “Win A Dream Holiday!” in large red type, immediately above a photo of the nearly capsized Costa Concordia and the headline in a smaller typeface, “Hunt for survivors goes on as death toll rises on stricken liner.”  

Another good, or bad, example may be the full page coverage of the Costa Concordia tragedy in the Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter, with a full page of advertisements for cruise vacations on the page next to it. (Some have suggested that cruise ad was not immediately next to the story.)  

Hypervocal points out that even the New York Times got in the act.  Perhaps placing the ad for Silveseas Cruises (“Six Ships. Seven Continents. Infinite Possibilities.”) next to the headline, “Passengers Tell of Delayed, then Panicked Evacuation, ” was not the best choice.

Youtube also has displayed ads for cruises for cruises under videos of the Costa Concordia sinking.

Britain’s Guardian’s juxtaposition was not advertising but another headline. Directly beneath a photo of the Costa Concordia‘s stack just above the water the Guardian ran the headline for another story, “Give Queen a new royal yacht for jubilee, says minister.”  Whatever the merits of that idea, I doubt the Queen would be interested in the Costa Concordia.