Having trashed the Lancaster Newspapers‘ long history of journalism integrity and virtually run the newspapers financially into the ground, the chair and the president of the Lancaster Newspapers has once again followed NewsLanc’s advice and did the intelligent and obvious thing this Sunday: They stopped packaging the advertising section of the Sunday News separate from the news section for delivery.
At its inception, NewsLanc exposed how the Lancaster Newspapers were “whoring” their news coverage on behalf of their partnership interest in Penn Square Partners and had participated in a disgraceful witch hunt against then county commissioners who were trying to carry out the will of 78% of responding Lancastrians (as determined by a Fox 43 countywide poll): The county commissioners did not want the county to guarantee Convention Center debt.
(Former commissioner Molly Henderson’s law suit against The Lancaster Newspapers for libel is currently progressing in the Chester County courts.)
A couple of years ago, NewsLanc stated the obvious that it made no business sense whatsoever to publish two separate daily newspapers. We advised to maintain two editorial pages, one “liberal” and one “conservative” (for whatever the designations may mean). This finally happened a week ago.
NewsLanc more recently pointed out the folly of separately packaging the advertisement section from news sections on Sundays. What advertiser wants to pay for a position in a separate package that is likely to go unread and dumped into the recycle trash?
Newspapers have a hard enough time surviving, especially in these difficult times, with advertisers fleeing to the Internet. Print sections of classified, auto, real estate and retail ads that used to bulge are now anemic and sometimes merged. Special advertising supplements are becoming rarer and thinner.
Nevermind that the paper is no longer delivered to our door step and we have to forage for it in the bushes or out near the street. This is an acceptable inconvenience to enable the daily newspapers to survive and hopefully once again prosper.
The two pieces of advice still ignored by the Lancaster Newspapers is to replace the publishers and apologize to the public for past misdeeds. If the Steinman Foundation ever obtains younger leadership, that day may yet arrive.
Guess the person who delivered my paper didn’t get the message, as half of my Sunday News was delivered yesterday evening and the balance this morning. The advertising section was bundled separate and immediately went in the trash. Whoever the new person is that was assigned to the route for our neighborhood sure screwed the advertisers this week!