The Numbers Game

We finally found something interesting to read in the Herald-Press.

In Thursday's edition (p.2), the paper finally printed its Statement of Ownership, a form required by all periodicals to file stating circulation figures.

Over the past year, the Paxton-held Herald-Press has been promoting its circulation as 6,500 during the week and 7,000 on Sundays. As we noted in an earlier post here, those numbers were highly dubious. our guess was somewhere in the 4,000s, and with Thursday's document, we were proven correct.

Current paid distribution is listed as 4,221. That number represents a 25 percent decrease in circulation since Paxton took over ownership of the Herald-Press.
Even in an industry that is struggling to keep readership, that is a huge number, especially in a small town, where readership has been generally less impacted than in major metro papers.

Now that advertisers know the true number of readers they are reaching, how many will be willing to continue paying the prices they are now, considering they are only getting to only three-fourths of the numbers they were told they were reaching?

Just one other note on the statement. The name of the publisher listed for the Herald-Press was not Andy Eads, who has the title of publisher. The name on the form was Neal Ronquist, the uber-overlord who oversees all five papers in Paxton's Central Indiana Group. Makes you wonder what Andy Eads' real role might be?

It's been easy to take shots at the Herald-Press, considering all the troubles they've had in the last year or so.

True, they've turned over an entire new staff, replacing a highly-experienced group with one that has virtually no experience, from the editor on down. We get frustrated with the inexperience, because we'd like our newspaper to give us the information we need. We want the reporters to go out and get the story, rather than wait for someone just to give it to them. There's no leadership, and no one who really knows how to gather the news.
We don't want our news two days late. By the time a story arrives in the Herald-Press, it's already old news. It's been in the Fort Wayne papers or on TV. Sports stories are the same way. In a time of instant news, running stories two days old is unacceptable.

But we also have some sympathy for the editorial staff. While they make their share of basic journalistic errors and omissions, they've also been hamstrung by the bizarre conditions thrust upon them by Paxton management.

Paxton's paradoxical way of running newspapers is the major reason for the precipitous decline of the Herald-Press. No paper, regardless of the experience of the staff, could endure under those conditions. Ridiculously early deadlines don't allow for timely reporting. Misguided priorities on coverage take away from the basic tenets of journalism. Flawed business models exchange a quick profit for long-term failure.

Paxton's mission is not to provide news to the community, but to squeeze out whatever cash they can get before dropping the local business either as a shell of what it was, or leaving it to fail altogether.

While not officialy a public utility, local newspapers are seen as a public trust, a vehicle to tie the community together. The newspaper informs, it acts as a watchdog of the community. Without a newspaper to inform, the main form of information becomes rumor and word of mouth. Fewer people are engaged in the processes that drive a community. Who knows where that apathy leads?

We know people who once were once quite involved in community activities who dropped the paper and now rarely take part in local events. This is not an isolated situation.

This is what Paxton has done to our community.