Newspaper war reignites in H-Town! Free weeklies targeted by Hearst operatives
The Houston Chronicle is the 10th largest newspaper in the whole damn US of A, but that is not enough.
To get what you want, sometimes you have to want it all, and The Chron wants total and complete domination in its market.
It vows to crush any competitor that stands in its way, even if that competitor is a freebie publication that is holding itself out to be a so-called "community newspaper."
Freebie schmeebie!
This "community" belongs to Hearst and only Hearst.
Those weekly publications suck off valuable advertising dollars from the Hearst behemoth -- advertising dollars that are needed in New York City to feed the Hearst Media Empire.
Who are these pipsqueaks and what makes them think they can sell ads in a Hearst Town?
Accordingly, the Houston daily is sending its thousands of minions into the Houston Galveston Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area to gather covert intelligence.
To reward their undercover work, they are offering free swag (Chron t-shirts? Ball-point pens? We're just not sure at this point).
Here's their plan:
First, ask employees to fill out this "confidential" survey to determine their loyalty and willingness to cooperate.
Then, tell the loyal Hearst employees to gather up "samples" of freebie publications that might be found lying in people's front yards or on the checkout counter down at the local Stop 'N Rob.
Said freebie publications are to be delivered to Hearst HQ (see photo above) at 801 Texas in downtown Houston for detailed analysis, with which a "plan of action" will be developed.
The boys in marketing and advertising and their "contract workers" Vinnie & Slim will take care of the rest.
Posts
6 comments:
"Then, tell the loyal Hearst employees to gather up any and all freebie publications that might be found lying in people's front yards or on the checkout counter down at the local Stop 'N Rob."
Any and ALL? Banjo, are you accusing the Chronicle of trying to stamp out competition by rounding up freebies to keep them out of circulation? Maybe I'm just being naive here, but I didn't read the survey that way. It sounded to me like they were interested in collecting *samples*. For example, to make sure that someone is bringing in a copy of the Pearland Journal every week so that the Chron can keep an eye on the competition. Sounds like good ol' American competitive spirit to me.
samples is what i meant.
i'll reword to make it perfectly clear.
dear Jim,
I've rewritten the post after carefully reading your comment.
The last thing in the world I would ever dream of the Hearst newspaper attempting to do is stamp out the competition by any unethical means. That would just be wrong.
Thanks for the clarification, Banjo.
The publisher of the Houston Community newspapers ought to send a dumptruck full of the papers over to 801 Texas Avenue.
Of course, the dump truck better be current on its loading-zone permit fees. MayorWhiteChiefHurtt don't take kindly to downtown parking shenanigans!
Thanks for all the traffic you've sent to my page via the use of the old Chronicle building photo.
Cheers!
Post a Comment