The Lynn Daily Item must be doing pretty well to turn away a potential advertiser
By adamg - 2/25/10 - 5:39 pm
Corey Jackson reports the Lynn Daily Item basically told him they wouldn't take his money to advertise his blog because he's written some less than nice things about the paper:
... Instead of receiving an answer from the advertising department, I got a personal e-mail from the General Manager of the Daily Item of Lynn, Phil Ouelette. He asked me to call him and as I knew right away what I was in for, I called immediately. ...
Comments
Or maybe the Lynn Daily Item
Or maybe the Lynn Daily Item simply knows it is more efficient to nip a prankster in the bud than to waste further staff time (and thus money) coping with him? (Of course, this perspective is will make sense only to actual business people, not those who blog as a hobby subsidized by another, real job.) This guy reported on everything except what, exactly, he intended to advertise in a paper he hates. On the plus side, he learned what a general manager is.
Read the blog
No pranks. Just wanted more people to go to downtownlynn.com. The Lynn item holds the monopoly on local advertising. I'll have to grow my readership in other ways. Read the blog. More then one comment today on what a great resource it is. One person who may even try one of the restaurants I've blogged about. That's my goal. The success of the new downtown Lynn and a dialogue about the issues. The Lynn item is apparently uninterested in that last part.
The struggle of newspapers
On one hand, the Item is to be commended for the great work they do in the community through sponsoring and supporting events, and even just for being a surviving daily. They not only serve the North Shore's largest city, but its surrounding communities where it competes with other hard-copy papers. (The Lynn Journal is hardly competition).
But this latest row with DowntownLynn.com is an example of how newspapers can fail. While other papers are embracing blogs and even linking to them on their web sites, the Item gets its feelings hurt and refuses to even accept advertising dollars. And to make matters worse, many of their website users mistakenly refer to their under-article comments as 'blogs,' referring to each other as 'bloggers' for commenting in a very limited and slowly moderated space. Those comments can take hours to appear, longer on weekends. Real Lynn bloggers are providing a more useful forum and it's only a matter of time before more of the public notices. Momentum is already picking up.
I operate both a blog and an online public affairs/events site in Lynn, called LynnHappens, but I do not see myself competing directly with a newspaper, online or in print. I think our different approaches complement each other. Lynn is too big of a place to not have multiple sources, multiple points of view. I'm worried about the Item's response to DowntownLynn, because if this is a sign of their overall approach to the modern world, what will happen when they're left behind and gone? Can the Journal, a remote outpost of the old Chelsea Record, really take up the slack? I know I can't. My "Hobby" is also subsidized by a day job that I love, and have no plans to leave.