The Cincinnati Enquirer Show Its True Priorities

I was disgusted by the Enquirer's response to the laying off of 101 employees, including the entire staff of CiNWeekly.  If you haven't read it yet, go read it now, and then come back while I highlight the salient points.

Done? Here is the salient point: Advertisers, we are still worth spending money on. Buy ads from us!

I understand everyone has to make a living.  But this is a bit of salt in the wound. I expected the post to be apologetic.  But there was no apology.  I expected sympathy. No sympathy towards its former employees or their families was mentioned.  Not even a little regret.  Here is what I read:

Naysayers have predicted our demise many times over those years, but today The Enquirer reaches 64 percent of local adults every week, or 803,800.

Look at our reach, buy ads from us!

Enquirer Media does not have an audience problem. Nearly two-thirds of the market will read our newspaper this week. It’s the economy.

Look at our reach, buy ads from us!

And, we’re more than a newspaper. Enquirer Media reaches 83 percent of the adults in its core market every week with one of our products. Moreover, it reaches those people nearly five times.

Look at our reach, buy ads from us!

We work for our advertisers. The newspaper and digital initiatives continue to provide the same strong results for our advertisers. We help them understand and employ today’s technology to grow their business and reach their goals.

Look at our reach, buy ads from us!

We have talented, flexible employees. And we still have, by far, the largest local footprint in terms of content gathering, print and online audience, promotional capability and sales capability.

Look at our reach, buy ads from us!

There was some other statements made, but that was all I read.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Enquirer isn't concerned with sounding apologetic. They're concerned with surviving. Their tone was desperate but logical.

Advertising has always funded the Enquirer and other newspapers. It's those ads at the bottom of the page that pay for the costs associated with the articles above it. So if ad revenue drops, something else in the budget has to change.

You could argue that the Enquirer could fight this by charging more per ad, but that would be suicide.

And anyway, what is the public losing from this? Classifieds are free on craigslist, wire stories are free on AP.com, and the Enquirer's own stories (with readers' comments!) are free online. If online advertising could bring in as much as print advertising used to, the journalism industry would be doing great.

hellogerard said...

Everything you say is correct, but my point was the Enquirer should have shown some sympathy, and they didn't even try.