A lawsuit charged a mortgage lender with racism because it allegedly charged African-American borrowers higher rates than other borrowers. News of the lawsuit was reported by the wire service, and it appeared in several newspapers. This is an example of

The correct answer to the following question will be "Negative publicity".

Explanation:

Negative publicity seems to be an advertisement that a business has such a legitimate reason that can sometimes suffer potentially serious repercussions according to it. If a commodity or organization is pretty much unknown this can increase revenue or sale of that product simply even though it enhances product consciousness.

Therefore, the given statement is an example of this type of publicity.