Philadelphia newspapers – you just don't get it

I hate to kick someone when they are down – and going down further BUT. First let me give you some background – I subscribe to the local newspapers – too many of them. I get the Enterprise, once a month, which is put out by Mike Fisher and he has a nice little paper that shows pictures of community events – the parades, awards etc…, I also get the Springfield Sun, once a week, in a small community you have to have something to tell you what the local school board or township supervisors might be doing and most importantly – who was arrested and who died. Each of these papers takes about 10 minutes to read and I actually enjoy reading them.

Now my dilemma – the Philadelphia Inquirer must have thought they could either compete with these or (what I believe) they have taken a desperate measure to sell more ads without giving anything of value in return. Let me explain – I noticed a week or so ago a new section included with the paper entitled “My Community Trend”. Actually I didn’t really notice it as part of my daily paper until I noticed them all over the street. I walk my dog each morning around 6 so I get notice when things are different in the neighborhood. The past few weeks I noticed that everyone who did not get the normal daily paper delivered was privileged to get the “Trend” unsolicited anyway. I guess since it is winter there is no obligation to pick it up out of your driveway those things you did not ask for nor want. In many cases 2 weeks worth of the “Trend” lay out there – I guess they will deteriorate eventually with only the plastic wrapping intact.

Now if this “Trend” was worth anything  I would not be writing this about them, so lets describe the “Trend”. It says on the cover that this is the Glenside Oreland edition, I am thinking that inside there should be something about those communities since it clearly states it is for those communities. On the cover is an actual article about giving blood in Glenside for the March 11 edition.  Not much else in my community for the rest of the 37 pages.

Interspersed among the MANY MANY ads were a “few” articles about a principal from another community, a movie review, to-do listings for things mostly out of my community, women in business, soduko, a review of a pizza place not in Glenside or Oreland, etc, you get the picture. Then I read that this “Trend” is put out by The Northeast Times. My first question is why is the Inquirer putting this in with their paper? Second is what is it supposed to be for or about?

I am thinking that the Northeast Times obviously paid the Inquirer to distribute this useless rag and hence my complaint. It is bad enough that they pretend to give me something of value in 38 pages when in fact this is nothing but a way to sell ads with no reason to read the thing, the major issue I have is that they distribute to many who obviously do not want it and now clutter and litter my streets.

The Northeast Times and the Inquirer should be made pay for cleanup of the community – I am guessing this is not unique to my neighborhood too.

Isn’t it bad enough you are losing readirship and now you give us a useless rag then compund it by trashing up the area – go back to the drawing board because you have not figured it out yet.

Do you get this useless rag in any of your neighborhoods? Do you have any other examples of newspapers getting really desperate like this?

Rick Simmons is a principal at Dinkum Interactive, a firm specializing in online marketing solutions for small and medium sized businesses around the globe. With more than 25 years of experience in advertising and marketing, Simmons has spent the last four years focused on search engine optimization, and other Internet marketing strategies. Reach him at 267-626-9094 or [email protected]