The real test of character is how someone handles adversity. After all, we all go through hard times, suffer set backs or make mistakes--but do we disclose our problems or try to cover them up?
The newspaper industry is famous for demanding accountability and transparency. Yet when their industry suffers hard times, they lie, spin and obfuscate in an effort to hide the real truth from readers.
Advertisers don't trust newspapers to report their circulation numbers honestly, so they subscribe to an organization called the "Audit Bureau of Circulations." Every six months, the ABC releases two circulation numbers, one for Sunday only and one for the rest of the week. Those are the audited numbers and you can see them here.
Here's what the Audit Bureau reported for the Republic.
Daily circ at The Arizona Republic in Phoenix fell 12.3% to 316,874. Sunday was almost flat (-0.8%) to 458,992.
However, here's how the Republic reported it. First they confirm that the independent audit bureau is the source.
Figures released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations show that average daily circulation for U.S. newspapers dropped 10.6 percent in the April-September period from the same six-month span in 2008.
Then they provide the statistics.
Sunday home delivery circulation was up 0.74 percent. Overall, Sunday circulation dropped 0.87 percent to 458,992. The Republic dropped 12.23 percent on weekdays, to 316,874.
The second part--showing a drop in both Sunday and weekday circulation--is clearly from the ABC report but what about the first statistic showing an up tick in the strange category "Sunday home delivery Circulation"? That's not in the report (at least not in the public part). That looks like an internal, unaudited spin statistic. That's the Republic's own number and you can believe it at your own risk. Yet the way the sentence is written, the number is presented as an audited number.
That's classic obfuscation. In fact, in a prospectus, it would be criminal. If that number is indeed unaudited and they are lumping it in with the audited numbers and passing it off to advertisers, they are at risk for fraud.
The advertisers have some protection at law. The readers however are at the mercy of the Republic's honesty and transparency. Unfortunately, although the paper demands these qualities in others, it doesn't demonstrate them itself..
It appears that advertisers are in a hurry to abandom the papers. Internet readership is way up and there seems to be a focus there.
Unfortunately, TV, radio and print are all going by the wayside.
Posted by: Jim Torgeson | October 27, 2009 at 02:23 PM
I have to admit, I love that I only pay a dollar for my Sunday paper and last month they added Wednesday, Friday and Saturday for FREE. Too bad it's such a crappy paper, but for a dollar a week, I wont complain.
Posted by: Amazed | October 27, 2009 at 06:05 PM
Just remember to recycle.
Posted by: Jim Torgeson | October 27, 2009 at 06:40 PM
Jim T -- you aren't even going to watch the Cardinals beat NY Giants????
Posted by: ron | October 27, 2009 at 07:47 PM
You're obsessed. Were you hit in the head by a newspaper as a small child?
Posted by: Phil Riske | October 28, 2009 at 06:22 AM
I just got a letter from the Arizona Republic informing me that because the Thanksgiving edition of the newspaper -- stuffed with "black friday" circulars -- is so popular, I would be charged an additional $1.50 for that issue. Huh?
Posted by: Jack | October 28, 2009 at 09:42 AM
In answer to your question, "Why can't they just be honest?": Because they are incapable of seeing anything other than their own egos and agendas.
Posted by: RonB | October 28, 2009 at 12:47 PM
It is called 'fallen nature'.
Posted by: ron | October 28, 2009 at 04:17 PM
You're obsessed. Were you hit in the head by a newspaper as a small child?
Posted by: Bill Pliske | October 28, 2009 at 08:58 PM
Sorry, Ron. I didn't even know they were playing.
Posted by: Jim Torgeson | October 28, 2009 at 09:20 PM
Why are times so tough for business magazines?
As a longtime inhabitant of businessmagazineland, I stumbled over a few of the assertions in David Carr's column on the death of the business magazine in today's NYT. For example:
Business magazines used to relish explaining all the complex new financial instruments that Wall Street was using to pile up profits. But now it has become clear that the titans who were wielding those obscure tools had no idea what they were doing — even less an idea than the journalists in some cases.
Uh, no, business magazines seldom wrote about that kind of stuff. It was too ... complex and Wall Streety. I'm also dubious of Carr's argument that the biz mags are being especially hurt by the real-time nature of modern news—business news (at least, investing-relevant business news) has been delivered in real time for decades. And while his point that business journalism is less relevant in an age where Washington calls most of the shots at least seems sensible, it does ignore that business journalism really came of age in the 1930s—another Washington-centric decade—with the birth of Fortune.
So what's left? Why has the business magazine business turned so horrible? Two of Carr's explanations make sense:
1) Business magazines are aspirational, and not so many of us are aspiring to be CEOs these days.
2) All advertising is down, but the particular ad categories that kept business magazines going—financial, consulting, cars, etc.—have been especially hard hit. Not a lot of Spam ads in Forbes.
I doubt that's all there is to it, though. Obviously, lots of people are reading stuff online instead of on paper, but that doesn't explain why business magazines in particular have been so hard hit. Maybe it's something to do with us all having less patience for long narratives in this age of constant distraction—WiFi in airplanes seems especially dangerous for the business magazines, since I always got the sense that most reading of long Fortune articles was done on plane flights (for TIME and People, obviously, the big threat would be WiFi in dentists' offices). There's also the vicious circle of less advertising leading to less editorial content which gives people less of a reason to buy the magazine which leads to even less advertising, etc.
Any other suggestions?
Read more: http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2009/11/02/why-are-times-so-tough-for-business-magazines/#ixzz0ViRWBpGg
Posted by: ron | November 02, 2009 at 09:25 AM
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Posted by: PL22Emily | January 22, 2010 at 08:53 AM