When we first moved here, way back in ’92, we had the local newspaper delivered. However, we quickly bored of the poor editing and even poorer writing and had it cancelled. They called a few times to talk us back into it but we gave them various excuses and they left us alone. Then came the wonderful thing called telemarketing and we started getting a lot of calls from them wanting us to buy their paper.
I finally told them their paper stank, don’t call me again, and remove me from your list. They got the hint and we stopped getting calls.
But that wasn’t the end of their marketing schemes.
Maybe once or twice a year, we find a free newspaper in the driveway. In the beginning it was just a marketing scheme to get folks to buy the paper. Then a grocery chain started sponsoring it and we started getting it more and more often. At first, we picked up the papers and ignored all but the comics. But eventually, we decided to leave them in the driveway as a effort to tell the delivery person that we didn’t want it.
They kept coming.
So I had Lorna line them up at the top of the driveway where the delivery person would see them.
And yesterday we got another one. Sigh.
Lorna and I are considering putting them in a box and mailing them, COD of course, back to the newspaper office.
Lorna dislikes the paper (mostly its delivery persons) because they tend to leave them in front of the mailboxes or inside the mailboxes. The latter is a federal offense and the former just gets it run over.
The paper is the Asheville Citizen-Times. It’s not a good paper. For one, it has a monopoly. There’s no other local papers of its size. There are others, sure, but none with the national links such as AP and the comics. There’s the Weaverville Tribune and the Asheville Tribune, both of which tend to be rather political.
I dislike poor newspaper writing. It isn’t difficult to write for a newspaper. Hell, I’ve done it so it must be easy. There’s a tried and true formula to follow. You present the facts starting at the most important and winding down to the least important since it is the end that gets chopped if necessary. You answer Who What When Where and, if possible, Why. That’s it. If your editor thinks you can write well, you’ll be asked to add more information to back up the facts and explain the speculations.
How hard can that be?