Local Newspaper Solves Financial Woes
Posted by DickH on 02 Jul 2009 at 08:43 pm | Tagged as: Lowell-2009, Technology
After much effort and experimentation, the local newspaper has finally discovered the key to its long-term financial viability. Mandatory furloughs, elimination of corporate 401K contributions, staff layoffs, declining subscriptions, evaporating advertising revenue and all the other seemingly insurmountable challenges of the past year have been swept away by this incredible example of journalistic innovation.
To what, you wonder, does the local newspaper owe this financial renaissance? Pet Memoriams (see below). For just $25 for a 2×2 piece or $40 for 2×4, bereaved pet owners throughout the Merrimack Valley are now able to share their grief with the entire newspaper buying community. And because the crafting of these memorials will be the product of trained, unbiased, professional journalists whose work will be held to the highest standards of ethics and exactitude, this service will be a game-changing financial windfall that will be emulated by other publications around the world. So congratulations to the Dutton Street brain trust for this remarkable achievement.
Given the place pets have assumed in segments of our society, this doesn’t seem like such a bad idea for The Sun. What I wonder is why I can put up a notice of the death of my pet for $25 or $40, but can’t advertise the next meeting of the Lowell Republican City Committee for that amount? I am afraid that given the cost of taking out an advert in The Sun, I may be reduced to asking Marie Sweeney to put a plug in for the LRCC on the Richard Howe blog.
Regards — Cliff
Cliff - we’re happy to mention meetings of the Republican City Committee free of charge. And if you or anyone else wants to immortalize a pet, particularly one who’s still alive, we’ll do that for free as well. Just email a photo and some text.
better deal than the dollar menu at McD’s!
Cliff, just put a photo of Dumbo up on the ad, submit it for the Monday Pet shoot and then tell folks they can pay tribute to Dumbo at XYZ!
Fluffy,we hardly knew ye. Judging from the date of Fluffy’s demise one may assume that Fluffy became startled when the warm engine block on which he or she dozed suddenly came to life and he or she became entangled in the serpentine belt.
What else can we expect from a paper that runs an unreadable column that runs under a cat’s byline?
I was still laughing out loud at Eleanor Rigby’s comment when I started reading that from Chris, which was just as funny. Thanks!
Regards — Cliff
I’d pay 40 bucks to memorialize the Republican City Committee.
How much would people pay to memorialize the Sun as we currently know it????
I think a local blogger mentioned once that the editor of the Sun thought a page of pet photos once a week would save the newspaper.
This is the bestest idea they’ve had since they decided to sacrifice their credibility and make up fake front pages (for a fee)to celebrate your 50th birthday or Junior making the varsity crew team.
No, wait a minute. Maybe their bestest idea was the special Ted Kennedy issue. Or the special Marty Meehan issue. Or any of those other issues where they prostituted journalism to have a pull out section filled with praise for some politico so that they could pressure local business into buying ads for it.\
Hopefully the boys who put the paper out will soon get back to work and stop trying to be Lowell’s shadow cabinet. Because if they don’t, it’s going to get mighty lonely over there on Dutton St.
Which reminds me to ask:
Has anyone calculated how much tax revenue the city of lowll lost when they moved all their trucks out to Ayer or Acton or wherever they make the paper these days? Or how much personal property tax was lost when they got rid of the printing press so that the paper could be printed out in the suburbs? Or how the chairman of the board luvs the city so much he thinks government should subsidize his buddies downtown rental properties while his company abandons Lowell as the place to produce its product and takes workers out of downtown and taxable property out of the city entirely.
It’s so absurd my ferret may die any minute.
Please don’t kill your ferret because of Kendall Wallace.
ODE TO FLUFFY ( with apologies to Walt Whitman)
Oh Fluffy, my Fluffy
A new day has begun.
Fresh litter in the kitty box.
Your fish tartare is done.
You’re not around, I leave for town.
The engine I am starting.
Without a care you slumber there.
Fur and flesh will soon be parting.
But o heart, heart, heart
Oh the bleeding drops of red
Where all over the engine my Fluffy lies
Fallen cold and dead.
It’s like a dead tree version of Lolcats.
In every particular.