Posted on 01/09/2005 6:41:39 PM PST by Pikamax
Hi, Why Did You Drop My Paper? By ANNA BAHNEY
ournalists at The Philadelphia Inquirer began the new year in proper fashion, by working the phones. But some senior editors were not calling sources. They were calling readers.
On Thursday, a handful of top editors, including the executive editor, Amanda Bennett, began making personal phone calls to former subscribers, many of whom dropped the paper this year after The Inquirer ran a series of editorials favoring John F. Kerry for president.
"If the people I call say, 'Yes, I was mad at your editorial,' then the next thing I say is, 'Would you like to come in and talk about it?' " Ms. Bennett said.
The Inquirer's election coverage included a daily editorial page series called "21 Reasons to Elect Kerry" that began on Oct. 10 and ran to Election Day, addressing different aspects of Mr. Kerry's proposed policies. That feature was paired each day with an op-ed piece highlighting President Bush's policies and record on the same issue.
"I am sure we lost subscribers in the fall, given the intensity of emotions of this election and given the scrutiny of the media," said Chris Satullo, the editorial page editor. "We did our job rather forcefully in supporting Kerry, and that only raised the stakes."
Last week, the paper's circulation department came up with a list of a couple of hundred people who had canceled during the election cycle and had not been contacted. The list was divided among editors and editorial board members - each with 15 or 20 names - and they began calling.
It is too early in the dialing process to present any results or plans for future discourse, Mr. Satullo said. But he said that he relished the dialogue with readers, adding that he tried to steer them away from using the terms "bias" and "objectivity."
"Those terms have been drained of any stable meaning," he said. ANNA BAHNEY
Maybe some of these major newspapers ought to start editorializing on how John Kerry should now disclose his "secret plan to end the war". Sure, he lost the election and all, but for the good of the country and the benefit of the troops, he should tell us what his plan is and every newspaper, especially those which endorsed him, should be pressuring him to do so. Yeah, sure, that'll happen.
It is good to see some of these a--hole "news" people reduced to doing telephone solicitation work, though. Working there way down to their appropriate role in the business - having their own paper routes.
And my response would be "Why bother talking about it - it would be like talking to a brick wall."
Nothing any reader can say will change their mind. Bennett and their other editorial board members have been on Philly talk radio, and it is clear that they could really care less about what their readers think, or about any "diversity" of thought at their paper.
Yes, i picked that up too. was the NYT trying to say that the effect was a small & insignificant impact on the paper, or where those 200 part of a much larger group? I only know that the rules are being rewritten folks! We can topple newsprint media into irrelevance if they do not report fairly and not show obvious partisan bias. We only need to harness technology in the right way... Blogging is the new flamethrower for us!
Uhm, dumb@ss? Your "job" is to report the news OBJECTIVELY.
ah yes.... newspaper staffers making cold calls, no let me rephrase that.. (ice calls LOL!)in order to convince offended readers to come back to the ranch & drink the kool-aid (trademark).
On Thursday, a handful of top editors, including the executive editor, Amanda Bennett, began making personal phone calls to former subscribers, many of whom dropped the paper this year after The Inquirer ran a series of editorials favoring John F. Kerry for president."If the people I call say, 'Yes, I was mad at your editorial,' then the next thing I say is, 'Would you like to come in and talk about it?' " Ms. Bennett said.
The irony: Conservatives are the subversives, getting truth to the masses by bucking the corporate masters and writing in their pajamas.
Liberals who work their 9-5 job and go to the office everyday disdain this.
Sure they know what bias is. Ask them for an example and they will point to Fox News. Fox News has not run with hoaxes the way that the New York Times, Boston Globe, LA Times, BBC, USA Today, NBC, AP, and CBS have.
Apparently journalism school is where one goes to enhance, refine, and develop one's stupid. Occasionally some boob will go for surgery to have more impressive, yet fake and ultimately unsatisfying stupids, but it really helps to have a lot of stupid already when one first signs up.
No. There is a Dumb Pill tablet dispenser at the water cooler.
I've seen this mentality at IBM's RTP in Raleigh, NC. Some of these people drift around in a daze when they're not just reading newspapers and drinking coffee.
No wonder IBM sold off its PC didivsion to the Chinese last month.
The only intelligent person I met was a retired A10 pilot who was the IBM project manager of my project on the JD Edwards software side.
I assume you live in Westchester, NY?
If they are calling folks .. they lost ALOT more subscribers then just from the election
The Philly Inquirer is a liberal rag
The only newspaper that I have read since college in 1968, is the Wall Street Journal.
I've been calling for all Freepers to cancel their pro-Kerry and pro-democrap papers for years now. I hope they tell the Philly pukes to "shove it". Very Heinzish term they can understand.
Hey, I finally figured out what the Traitor's doing in the ME. He's gathering support for his plan. When he comes home he's going to make a big speech in the Senate that if the people would have only elected him he would have be able to stop the war all the leaders of the ME told him they'd stop. NOT
I don't buy it for a second...I once called an editor at the SF Chron to complained about an editorial....He basically told me to get lost. I canceled.
Last year when they used the death of a local Marine in Iraq to slap "W" - even after an appeal from the Marines family that stated they supported Bush, the chronicle's subscription rate dropped by the thousands...
They have now resorted to throwing thousands of free papers on area lawns just so they can claim a circulation rate high enough to charge more for their ads.
Dear Ms. Bennett,
I have just read an article in your newspaper about a process of listing former subscribers and having staff members contact them to find out why they have rejected your newspaper. The article ends with the following, incredible lines:
> It is too early in the dialing process to present any results or plans for future discourse, Mr. Satullo said. But he said that he relished the dialogue with readers, adding that he tried to steer them away from using the terms "bias" and "objectivity."
> "Those terms have been drained of any stable meaning," he said.
Though my principal activity in my career has been practicing law in the US Supreme Court, I have kept my hand in, in journalism for 41 years. All told, I've published about three million words, not including legal briefs which, fairly assessed, are not written in English. So there is a basis for what follows:
My conclusions from that coda in your paper to that article are threefold: I trust the quote is accurate, since your reporter is quoting one of your own. Any person who would say such a thing should not be employed by any reputable news outlet. And any news outlet which saw fit to retain the services of such a person should lose its readers, listeners, viewers (as the case ma be) and go out of business.
Since I've had prior correspondence with Mr. Satullo and find him to be as clueless in person as he seems in writing, I have not written to him on this occasion. You may, of course, share this with him.
Although I have written this to you personally, you are welcome to treat this as an ordinary letter to the editor.
I have provided my address in case you choose to respond. I would be interested to know whether you are seriously interested in the pending demise of your newspaper.
Sincerely,
Billybob
Earth to Inky: WORDS MEAN THINGS. Moreover, words are your stock in trade. "Bias" and "objectivity" may mean nothing to you, but they mean something to the rest of us. Look into them.
I think we are living in a time when the Philadelphia Inquirer is less reputable than the National Enquirer.
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