That's the section with the editorials, letters to the editor and the big 'focus' pieces of the week.
After the first copy I brought home turned up without the section, I went out a little later to two other Plainfield newsstands. After checking through a sampling from the stacks of Sunday papers, I failed to turn up any with the missing section.
It's especially irksome because much of the content is touted as 'First in Print', meaning you pays your $1.25 in cash on Sunday and gets to read the stories the same day, where those wanting to read them online must wait until the next day. So, if they're not in the print edition, what was it exactly you were paying for?
Since the paper is now produced and printed at the Asbury Park Press's Neptune plant, it is hardly the fault of the Courier's staff (at least I hope not) that the section went missing but you have to wonder who is managing the show for Gannett's New Jersey operation.
With newspapers everywhere suffering declining circulations (the Courier's has dropped from about 44,000 less than a decade ago to about 16,000 today I am told) they hardly need to be shooting themselves in the foot by short-sheeting the paying public.
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2 comments:
Dan: while I agree with your point that Gannett is inept to leave out any part of its teeny, tiny print product, as a home-delivery customer I can give you a run-down, and it aint much: letters to the editor- one from Old Bridge urging shingles shots, one from Edison about taxing pop stars and fire fighters at the same rate, the third about high bank fees. The editors took a hard-hitting half-page stand for greater gas mileage. An opinion piece urging enforcement of bans on texting while driving; an article on the AT&T, T-Mobile merger, and a page of reader-written copy on what NJ does better than other states yawn. Buy The HNT. It runs the exact Input missing from The Courier.
There's not much reason to buy the paper anymore. Everything is online, even the comics. They should be trying harder, not sloughing off. What is something that could be done within the context of the print medium that would be impossible online? Samples? Collectibles? Contests? They need to put on their thinking caps or they are doomed.
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