Posted on 01/13/2005 12:47:56 PM PST by rightalien
The Philadelphia Inquirer is hemorrhaging circulation, to the degree that the Circulation Department has gotten members of the editorial staff to start harassing…umm calling former subscribers, asking them to pretty please start reading the rag again.
"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 [executive editor Amanda Bennett] said.
What editorial? Glad you asked.
…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.
As Polipundit dryly noted: Gee, I wonder who could possibly be offended by that.
Evidently, it still has not occurred to MSM types that their continued attempts to pretend that they are an objective news source, while treating the majority of their audience with contempt, is repellant. Nobody needs the Philadelphia Inquirer, except, of course, for the people who work there.
In less desperate times, editorial staff would have angrily rejected pleas to call up ex-subscribers and humbly ask their continued patronage. No longer.
Lotsa luck! You're going to need it. People have had it with you guys.
Thomas Lifson 1 13 05
Richard Baehr adds:
The newspaper in Philly is losing circulation, and the city is losing population (estimate of a decline of 100,000 in four years). But the number of registered voters for the 2004 election was up 150,000 in the city since 2000. Go figure. Kerry captured the state by only 145,000 votes out of almost 5.8 million votes that were recorded. Barbara Boxer is worried about the validity of Ohio results. The bigger problem may have been next door in Pennsylvania..
Goooooood! Lets start counting. How about NYT, Wpost, USAToday, etc. When are they going to bleed to death? Can't be soon enough.
"The bigger problem may have been next door in Pennsylvania."
Didn't the Amish voter registration help out!
Would love to see the same thing with LA Times, NY Times and Seattle's newspapers to name just a few.
I have made it a point to boycott all of the crazy left individuals and companies. They don't get my money. I suggest that we all make a concerted effort to boycott products and services by these crazies. It'll get around and they'll eventually get the word.
A Democrat National Committee propaganda outlet slowily dying. AND in the corrupt state of Pennsylvania, ruled by thug democrat party vermin.
Life doesn't get any better!
Actually, yes, it did, quite a bit. However, Kerry carried the city by an 80-20 margin, and I believe, 11 counties total. The rest of the state went for Bush, but it wasn't enough to counterbalance the living and dead socialists that voted in Philadelphia.
I may not think Ahhhnnaaaalllldd has done enough yet, but no self-respecting Repub in the entire state of Commiefornia should be buying that garbage wrap after their smear campaign against him---
AWESOME!!!! Amanda Bennet was the editor-in-chief of the Lexington Herald-Leader before she went to Philly. She said in a speech to the Rotary Club that the paper had no liberal bias, and she was laughed at by the whole room. Hers was the first paper in the nation to endorse Kerry. My heart sings.
OOOOOO.... that felt so good to read!!!
You may be joking, but it probably did help here in Ohio. We have a larger Amish population than PA and news reports said they registered and voted in force.
Let's add the San Jose Mercury news (CA, naturally) to the list. I dropped it in disgust last year. The last straw was when the writer of the "Family" column in the "Family" section started referring to the mother of his children as his "Parenting Partner". It's a sad day when "mother/father/parents" become politically incorrect. The editor wrote me and invited me to observe one of their editorial meetings to prove to me how objective they really were. I declined.
The once-mighty liberal newspapers may be losing circulation, but there is a way they can be saved -- the Department of Homeland Security can LEASE the headquarters buildings of the NYT, Washington ComPost, Philly Inquirer, LA Times, Boston Globe, etc., and use the empty offices for crisis management centers, because we can be assured that if al Qaeda were to ever hijack any more airliners as they did on 9/11, that they would never DREAM of crashing them into the aforementioned newspaper buildings.
After all, why would they attack their ALLIES?
I e-mailed her just the other day, here's what I said:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000749618
After reading the article I wanted to tell you I also stopped buying your paper. I didn't have it delivered as it is readily available where I live. The 21 days of Kerry is what did it for me. I want to read news, not opinion. We don't have state controlled news, yet, but after seeing that plus Tony Auth cartoons I give up. I have not seen one positive article about President Bush, and if there is one it's always qualified with a but.
I am a registered Democrat and voted Republican for the first time this year. If I only read your paper and not other viable news sources I wouldn't have found anything good about him.
You may not like him and disagree with his policies but we the readers have a right to make up our own minds, not to be told how to think and think like you.
I'm looking forward to reading the Evening Bulletin and hoping it's more news and not opinion based on news.
Well, do not forget --
These people are fanatics.
They believe the world
depends on their "strength"
to stand tall and print their "truth."
They'll do anything
to maintain their power
and their control of the press.
Things might get tough here . . .
Dear Ms. Bennett,
You responded to me immediately by Blackberry on Sunday night when I referenced the article that quoted both you and Chris Satullo concerning your newspaper's plan to talk to former subscribers about why they abandoned your newspaper. You said you were unaware of it.
I responded immediately to let you know the article would appear in the next day's New York Times. I heard nothing further from you about Mr. Satullo's most unfortunate but telling quote that the writer of the Times article used as the coda to her piece.
I mentioned that I am a Pajamahadeen, who helped bring down Dan Rather. Here on the Internet, information flows to those of us who are sitting here in our (figurative) pajamas. In the last few minutes the following information about you has flowed to me. I understand that you were "editor-in-chief of the Lexington Herald-Leader before [you] went to Philly. [You] said in a speech to the Rotary Club that the paper had no liberal bias, and [you were] laughed at by the whole room. [And yours] was the first paper in the nation to endorse Kerry."
If those comments about you are correct, then it is quite clear that the entire staff of the Inquirer are clueless about why your circulation is continuing to decline -- it's because those people who "do not move their lips when they read" (as the late, great Ralph McGill once said to me) are abandoning your paper because of its political biases. Retain the biases and you will continue to hemorrhage readers/subscribers.
Do you have the perspective to understand even that possibility? That that might be the case? Or am I wasting my time to write to you as a 40-year journalist with some knowledge of that field and politics?
Sincerely,
John Armor /s/
John Armor, Esq.
Post Script: If anyone at the Inquirer had Googled "John Kerry" and "President" and "nomination" before making your paper's endorsement (unless it was before last last February) you would have come up with my discussion of Lieberman, Kerry and Edwards. The first two I knew personally, Lieberman as a fellow Editor of the Yale Daily News, and Kerry as a new member of the Yale Political Union when his rise to nearly the top first began. Had you or the others at your paper read that article, and maybe even phoned me up, you might have given pause to the idea of hitching your paper's wagon to that dubious star.
There's a world out there, beyond the walls of your newsroom, where relevant facts are lying around waiting to be picked up. I used to think that fair reporting was difficult. I now know the reverse is true. It's difficult to avoid fair reporting. One must work, to ignore all those available facts.
I do not know, FutureSenator, whether this will provoke a response. I'll post it if I do. But Ms. Bennett should feel the lash of logic just from reading it.
Billybob
Problem is, by the time you get to day 21, all the Kerry positions from days 1-15 have been repudiated.
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