Pop Culture as News/News as Pop Culture?

I don't know how many times I have seen newspaper headlines from so called respectable ... or what once were known as respectable newspapers ... with real life figures photo-shopped into movie characters.
It's like the newspaper is involved in some movie tie in promotion with the studio to push a current movie release on DVD, or the cinema.

These are the two real life Queensland politicians in the photo above from the same newspaper a few pages in. 

Not only that, but a more news-worthy story of child sex abuse in the church gets pushed back further inside the paper instead of being in the spotlight. 

A cartoon in that paper comparing
 the real story
 to a movie about real news

Why do editors resort to photo-shopping real life people into Toy Story characters?

The newspaper stories are literally becoming more of a joke by fusing pop culture with real life.

Pretty soon they will be asking if you would like fries with that Mc-Toy Story. 

Maybe it's aimed at children to bug their parents to buy a newspaper to take home and pin on the wall?

But I think real people fused with Lego images on the front page might be a better idea, because all in all we're just all bricks in the wall anyway.    

At least the following day's front-page headlines had the sex abuse allegations inside the church back in the spotlight without any cartoon characters in sight.

Although, I'm not sure if that BEAR reference in that last headline wasn't a pop cultural reference, or not;-)