The Ashland only newspaper, The Daily Press (owned by Superior Publishing Corporation), is becoming embarrassing to me as a reader. Especially to their on-line source and opinions. With a 6,153-circulation (which is only 12% of this blog’s monthly readers), filled 80% filled with AP reports, 1 page for local sports and the rest classifieds or advertising you think original reporting would be a good thing.
I have submitted articles about tech tips, movie reviews, gadgets, wifi, and tech news time and time again completely ignored. I guess a staff without a sense of youthfulness or have editors with blinders on and dictate what is news.
I am not expecting a Washington Post, I get that Ashland, WI is a small town. But more and more people are using computers, more free thinkers and expect more from a local paper. So why not cover more? What is in a small town newspaper? I have seen small town newspapers, and the Daily Press is embarrassing.
Letters to God
Someone at The Daily Press must be extreme devout religious person. Because every five (5) letters to the editors seems to be a pray, quest to convert or proclaim this nation a religious one. The editor to whom letters to the editor is sent, Claire Duquette, is an active board of her church. Which probably why she favors the “letters to god” rather than discourse on non-religious preaching.
Preaching is exactly what these “letters to editors” are all about.
“…May all come to know the love, freedom and forgiveness only Christ can bring. Blessed is the nation who trusts in the lord. May our country return to him.” (
Lord, thank you for lifting us up so we can lift others. We reach out to you for strength and power so we can bring needed healing, deliverance, and spiritual freedom to those in need. Help us to use our hands to your glory, in Jesus’ name, amen.”
“Lord, help us every day to partake of Jesus, the living water, so others will draw near to you through our pure and love-filled lives. We ask this in his holy name. Amen.”
Censorship
A newspaper who main source of protection is Freedom of the press in the United States is granted by the United States Constitution. So why do they censor comments?
- You are required to have a login or an account to post comments. This is a common practice of all major newspapers.
- You can submit a comment, after you jumped through hoops and submiting an account, it is in holding. It needs to be approved. This is not common practice.
I can understand a simple code that will not allow comments with certain words, it is only stands to good reason that certain words not make print. But then not allow those words. A simple javascript will check as the user types, and if a certain word is typed it will pop a warning. The comment will not be submitted until the comments have been altered for all age groups.
But instead, The Daily Press practices the exact opposite of freedom of the press . . . censorship. They censor all comments and never make them available to the public. But they will allow for comments, they just control the comments.
If I ran the newspaper, just let it go. Either allow for comments and not censor or do not allow for comments. The control over others creates dictatorship and censorship.
High School and Garage Sales
Covering a community is more than just High School sports and garage sales. Which both are covered quite well in the Daily Press. But everything else is just limited to a community page, which has to be submitted by the community. But, that is all. No other coverage or reporting is done. Here are some examples;
- I had two outreach programs for technology. It was advertised via the Daily Press, but not one reporter or correspondent showed up. The technology forum covered the ending of XP support 04/14/09, Gadget Demos, News, Government Rural Broadband, Tricks to make your computer faster, and much more.
- Monthly at the Black Cat there is a change of artist and artwork. Not once was it covered, unless it was for a church member, relative, or someone who is or will be working for media.
- There is an active main street, but the only time a business is covered is either if it is good news or bad news. It is never a business profile. Other newspapers have one business a profiled a day. Granted they would run out of businesses someday. What a way to promote main street by talking about main street, especially for those small businesses.
- This area is filled with wonderful things to do. In the many newspapers for their Thursday edition have weekend ideas. Day trips, hiking trails, festivals and so on — that would get people excited and look forward to each Thursday. I had a notebook in which I clipped each one and planned my weekends and road-trips with friends.
- There are plenty of places to eat in the area. Where is the food review?
- There is a five (5) screen movie theater on main street, all current movies. Where are the movie reviews?
- Taking a section in the newspaper and every day of the week have it cover different themes. Medical Monday? Tech Tuesday? Wacky Wednesday, it is hump day why not make it fun facts, odd news or even subscribe to “News of the Weird? Thursday Theatre? Science Friday?
- Are the editors the only local writers for non sporting or health events? Notice the rest of the writers are through amconmedia.com or Daily Light writers.
There are plenty of ideas for a newspaper to run articles, cheap and to constantly grab viewership interest. It isn’t all about AP stories, High School sport and garage sales.
Online News
The Daily Press does have an online edition, but desperately needs a webmaster. The online edition is not used to its full potential. Here are the basic sections:
- Home (active)
- News (active)
- Sports (active)
- Obituaries (active)
- Opinion (404 error) – It is either /opinions or /opinion. /opinion doesn’t work.
- Automotive (active)
- Business (active)
- Community (active)
- Health (active)
- Video (404 error)
- Podcasts (404 error)
- Classifieds (active)
The simple rule ” errors out, don’t link” doesn’t seem to apply. Talk about unprofessional. Hire a webmaster, if you already do — he isn’t doing his/her job very well.
Click This
Nothing cheapens a online service than those quick fix ads . . . make money, loose weight and so on. There are ads every where. Did you know it cost minimal $350 (either weekly or monthly) to put ads on the online edition? They do not offer stats, records or tracking for clients who have ads. It is such a secret. You get 1/2 a product for a large price. I know that I have ads on the contemplation. You better believe the clients keep track stats, if they go below a certain number I loose their sponsorship and income.
What about ad placement? Lets compare . . . obituaries. Today I took screenshots from the menu down of three newspapers.
Washington Post
Pioneer Press
The Daily Press
When my obituary is written, please do not put it in the Daily Press next to fat and scam ads. Better yet, don’t put it in The Daily Press at all, I don’t want visitors scammed. That is exactly what dominates The Daily Press, scam ads.
The IQ ad above the Jean A Vernoski obituary ends up being a scam for an cell phone sms service automatically charged to your cell phone for $9.99 a month. The service is called Too Lazy and the only way to get out of the service is to read the small print “ sending an SMS with the word STOP to our short code 47941, calling 1-800-510-1468, or by sending an email to our customer support address: support@toolazy.net“
The other ad, I call the fat scam – is selling two products (only available in US – illegal other places)
- AcaiBerry Detox
- product will recur at a 21% savings of $19.95 off regular price, for low price of $87.13 with a fresh one-month supply of AcaiBerryDetox shipped every 30days from the initial order as part of our Auto Delivery program.
- Bromalite
- Ordering this item enrols you for a free 12 day trial of Bromalite. After the 12 day trial, You will begin a subscription for Bromalite at $69.95 a month, automatically billed to your credit card. You’ll be shipped a 30 day supply that’s yours to keep even if you decide to cancel your subscription right away.
To stop either of these programs . . . you have to jump through hoops. To stop the monthly charge or get a refund you must contact the companies for a code. Once you have the code you contact someone else . . . and by the time it goes through you are already charged another month of product.
Not only that but your information, your identity is being sold to the highest bidder. You are now a perfect person for spam and just wait for those pleas emails for 1,000,000 free money from some prince in Nigeria.
How do these ads get in The Daily Press? It is called an Affiliate Program. You get ads that make money either by each active click by a user or a percentage of profit. The Daily Press wants you to be scammed. Can The Daily Press control their ads so as not to be online scammers? Yes. I do.
Here on The Contemplation there are ads. There isn’t one scam! No monthly charge. Nothing. The ads are chooses because I use the products, each and everyone. Not one of the ads are “click for pay”. The largest ad is a comic book ad, Mycomicshop Affiliate Program pays me 15% credit on my next order placed by every visitor you refer to us via web site link referrals. Right now I have $2.15 credit for my next comic book, basically I will only have to pay about $ 2.50 for my next comic book.
But the viral ads on The Daily Press are sucker scam ads . . . that is not very professional. It fact, being a newspaper you think scamming your customers is the last thing you want to do. Especailly in a small town, one customer clicks and they will tell their neighbors that The Daily Press has ads that cost them almost $100 a month.
But when does making a few cents on ads make or break a newspaper? If it is about a few cents, then why not just have two subscriptions 1. online and delivery 2. online only. If you do not want to get into regulating online viewers then adjust your affilate programs existing locally (ie Radio Shack, McDonalds, Family Video)?
Final Thoughts
Nothing is more important to me than a daily newspaper. My first job in DC was to read the top six (6) newspapers to create clips for the Library of Congress. I created media packets for the all the “higher ups”. This was before the internet and I was limited to Lexus and that was for the overseas papers.
I subscribe to The Daily Press with a good laugh over breakfast of the police reports (compared to DC the police reports are actually funny). The best report when a woman called the police because she believed she was robbed; the evidence was a missing roll of paper towels. I kid you not.
You will sell more newspapers if the content is there. Why read what already exists everywhere else. All I have to do is search for AP stories and I have basically80% of The Daily Press.
Final Advice – Take advantage of specialists (technical, social, and events) for more original articles, get rid of “letters to god”, get some original non-syndicated writers, stop with the scam ads, hire a a good webmaster and clean up your online site. The Daily Press is a “The Daily Embarrassment”
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