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I think one of the commenters are on a better track.

1) if they use a real newspaper, it dates the footage. For instance, if the paper shows “President Reagan” on it, then you know it is from 1980-1988. it gives the show less shelf-life.

2) regional stamping. in some parts of america the NYT is the greatest paper ever. in others, its great… to train your dog with. Even besides those political differences, if you want someone to relate to a show shot in illinois, its best not to show the Sun-Times, but let the viewer imagine their own regional paper.

3) product placement. first if you see the NYT banner, you are giving awareness to them. if the NYT hasn’t paid for that, you are giving away free advertising. and then anything in the paper about a product, is more free advertising. So simpler to have a blank and say, “if you want us to push your product, pay us.”

4) and what if the news is bad, about some product in some way? if your sponsor is Toyota, they won’t appreciate seeing an article about the failing breaks on their cars on your newspaper. i suppose if the sponsor was GM, they would positively want you to show that, but life is simpler, when the paper says nothing on the subject.

btw, on a similar note, virtually every time someone dials a phone or writes out a phone number, they are using the same dead line. That is more courtesy than anything else, because idiot movie geeks will dial any number displayed in a movie. i guess there might be some fear of suit, too. really people can be pretty obnoxoius about movies. for instance, did you know there is a real John Rambo? or was, actually. he died in vietnam. And his parents get constant calls because of the movie. can’t blame Sly, obviously. The screenwriters might be surprised to find out Rambo is even a real name; it sure as hell sounds made up. but because of movie nerds the parents of a man who died for his country are rewarded with stupid crank calls. sad.

If I remember correctly, The Bill Murray movie “Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” had the misfortune of being accidentally named after a real person…who turned out to be a lawyer. I believe some settlement was reached between attorney Zissou and the movie producers.

Aaron, witness the multi-area code disaster that befell holders of the number 867-5309 way back when.

Some enterprising lawyer should find the poor girl labeled as “3rd brightest” and file a false light suit on her behalf.

Building Code Under Fire!
New Petitions Against Tax!

The previous ubiquitous paper that can be seen in everything from “Plan 9” to “Perry Mason.”

I have read that in the Marx Brothers film “A Day At The Races”, the original name for Groucho’s character was to be Dr. Hugo Quackenbush (which the writers thought too silly to be real), but then, to their dismay, they learned of an actual Dr. Quackenbush, and changed the name to Dr. Hugo Hackenbush. Of course, that sounds like it COULD be an actual name, but evidently it was not, and that was the reason a realistic name was used, instead of something more along the lines of Rufus T. Firefly.