CanWest News Service - Seeking to assert themselves as the go-to place for news on the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University shooting Monday, several large news organizations paid Internet search firms to boost traffic heading to their websites.

Newspapers such as the New York Times, online publications such as the First Post in the United Kingdom and broadcasters such as CNN and Fox bought keyword banner ads that appeared when Internet users searched for information about Monday’s shooting. The ads directed people to the news sites that bought the ads for the latest updates.

A total of 32 people were killed when student Cho Seung-Hui went on a shooting rampage Monday morning.

The news organizations bought the prominent advertisements on search engines Google, Yahoo and MSN shortly after the first reports of the shootings were issued. The ads appeared once a person searched for specific keywords, such as “Virginia shooting” or “Virginia Tech.”

The ads made the coverage of paying media organizations the first thing seen by Internet surfers at the top of the search page. Competing organizations that did not pay for ads could be found by scrolling down the page.

“Lessons from Virginia” read the advertisement for the First Post on Google Thursday.

“Shooting at Virginia Tech,” read the highlighted advertisement for the Times on the Yahoo search engine. “The New York Times has the latest news and updates,” read the Times ad on Yahoo.

CNN’s Yahoo ad was similar, reading “Virginia Shooting . . . Get the latest breaking news on the shooting at Virginia Tech.”

Google, Yahoo and MSN offer keyword advertisements so companies can better target their ads to consumers.

Using keyword ads to advertise news coverage underscores the intense competition in the media industry.

With more people going to the Internet for their news every day, the revenues from a media organization’s online holdings should only increase.

Aly Colon, who teaches ethics at the Poynter Institute, a Florida school for journalists, said in a market as competitive as journalism, there is nothing wrong with promoting your story.

“I see them [search engines] as huge bulletin boards, electronic ones and people are paying to get their news as high up as possible,” said Colon.

The news ads were clearly marked as “sponsored results.” Colon said his opinion would be different if the ads masqueraded as regular search results.

Others were not as supportive.

“It’s an admission of failure,” said Mark Federman, former chief strategist at the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto. “They are saying . . . ‘I have manipulated my Google ranking by paying money for the higher ranking.’ This is a lesson in how to destroy your credibility.”