Advertisers doesn't normally buy enough to put the ad in every single paper the newspaper prints that day. The number of papers the newspapers print varies based on a number of factors, including day of the week, how that paper sold on that day last year, what the immediate sales trends are and even what kind of news/sports happened the day before. So, for example, Target might have bought insert placement in 110,000 papers, but the newspaper actually printed 134,821 papers on Thanksgiving day. The inserts are put in home delivery papers first. They usually run out before all the single-copy papers are printed. So there are nearly 25,000 papers out in the stores without the Target ad -- not because the newsapaper left it out, but because Target did not buy the entire run. If you're going out and buying the paper from a box or retail location, you are lessening your chances of getting all the ads. And it's that way every day, not just on Thanksgiving.