Paper paid to print only good news
Tuesday | October 25, 2005 | 8:41 am
Did I miss a day of journalism school?
Because I don’t remember when Don Ranly said it was OK to be paid by a city’s council to print only good news.
If I were the Star-Ledger, the local daily, I’d start up a marketing campaign pronto. I don’t think it’s worth attacking this joke of a weekly, but a campaign along the lines of “Good news. Bad news. And everything in between.” might be just what the doctor ordered.
It’s bad enough that we’ve got propaganda at the national level, but to see this blatant pay-off at the local level is disturbing.
If the Newark Weekly News is publicly admitting to taking money for publishing good news, then how many other papers are doing the same thing, only we haven’t heard about it.
Local bloggers, start your engines!
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Journalism
Disclaimer: I work at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of the AJC, Cox Newspapers, Cox Enterprises nor any other party.
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Comments
John Engler October 25th, 2005 | Link to this comment |
Now that’s total crap. I can’t believe that this is happening in NJ, and I hope it never happens in Texas…
I could see it working, if it were a full page of stories that were all ganged together and had a disclaimer that said “Advertising” at the top and bottom of it, with a block of text that said something like “These stories were all suggested and paid for by the mayor’s office and the city council” but, to run those stories as news? That’s preposterous.
Thanks for pointing Chris.
Press Paid to Write Good News at inluminent October 25th, 2005 | Link to this comment |
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