Verizon vs. Vonage: Is WSJ ad department taking sides?

Paul Kapustka at GigaOm has unearthed some information that appears to paint the picture that The Wall Street Journal's ad department is either quite sympathetic to, or quite afraid of, Verizon's reaction to Vonage's ads for Vonage's FreeToCompete.com website.

Last night, Paul wrote:

When we looked at the back page of Friday’s Marketplace section of the Wall Street Journal, it looked like the delivery person had perhaps taken offense with the Vonage ad campaign about its patent case with Verizon, with what looked like some black-pen editing, the kind you might see in edited government documents:

A closer look showed that indeed, some text had been blacked out, but why?

Vonage sent GigaOm an image of the original ad.

Clearly visible, the offending line asked “Now, Verizon has chosen to attack Vonage in the courts. Why? Could it be all about the money?” 

Brooke Schulz, Vonage vice president for corporate communications, told Paul that The Wall Street Journal’s advertising department told Vonage that it would not accept the ad in its original format, forcing the company to black out the aforementioned line if it wanted to spend its money on the Journal’s pages.

The Wall Street Journal is fearless in its news coverage, and kow-tows to no one. Heck, they were even fearless about Enron.

But can their advertising department make the same claim?