The Canwest series, headlined New Energy Future, was entitled "a special information feature, in partnership with Shell Canada." That phrase is in print three millimetres high. The pieces were published in the National Post, the Montreal Gazette, the Ottawa Citizen, the Edmonton Journal, the Calgary Herald, Toronto Star and the Vancouver Sun.

The stories describe Shell's environmental work and profile Shell employees. "Myth Buster" sidebars portray Shell's oilsands operations positively.

"They should be marked clearly that they are advertising," Sierra Club director John Bennett said Thursday. "They appear to be newspaper stories."

"The normal standards that would apply would be to identify it clearly as advertising rather than as editorial content," says Chris Waddell, director of the Carleton University School of Journalism. "But you can see over the years, both in newspapers and magazines, an attempt being made to make the differences look as insignificant as possible."