Statesman turns to littering
Don @ IdahoRadioNews | June 21, 2009If you’ve walked around the neighborhoods of Boise in the past few days, you’ve probably seen this:
Little bundled up rolls of paper. If you unfurl it (which clearly very few people have done by the looks of it), you find an Albertsons ad, a bridge column and some crosswords. It is a product of the Idaho Daily Statesman, which inexplicably dropped them all over town Wednesday. Unsolicited. I happened to be outside at my home when the driver dropped them in my neighborhood and couldn’t figure out what the deal was.
The deal was this — the Statesman was littering.
Litter: trash, such as paper, cans, and bottles, that is left lying in an open or public place
Why? I don’t know. But the unsolicited papers are in gutters all over town. Hopefully this was a one time deal…
We have this problem in our neck of the woods from time to time with our local “dead tree carcus.” It seems that the carriers are encouraged to start dropping off their version of the “weekly advertiser” on non subscribers and other peoples lawns and door steps. This happens on a more or less regular basis and is the source of much irritation.
Their Weekly Advertisers consists of some weekly “local” news section wrapped around a bunch of advertising circulars and inserts and other useless crap. The carriers will do this, junking up your property until you call their circulation manager and tear them a new one . Its just great to have a bunch of unwanted molding papers on your lawn that scream…COME BURGALRIZE ME! I assume your local papers management has de-evolved into this kind of marketing program as well?
I have been told…..Our local paper publication uses their Weekly Advertiser to boost their circulation numbers so that they can boast how many households and readers they have when it comes to selling to advertisers- Perhaps the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) would be interested in knowing about this….. But I could be wrong…..
I noticed this happened a lot when I first moved to SE Boise in 2007. They were everywhere – sunbleached, soggy litter dropped at every house. I hadn’t realized until I read this that we haven’t gotten those in the past year or so. Interesting.
We get those in Meridian too. They throw them up on our driveway, and I pick it up and drop it in the recycling bin without even looking at it. Waste of time.
Yep….every Tuesday like clockwork. We haven’t wasted money on the paper in a long time, and yet…they grace us with our presence every week. Cannot wait until our new home is built in an undisclosed (and unprofitable, out of the way subdivision) so that these can be someone else’s problem. And RadioActive, you are absolutely correct that they use these little gems to boost their circulation, it’s kind of like a makegood for some advertisers (Albertson’s) who were promised a certain viewship…but can’t get it through the normal Wednesday paper. Since it’s free and has a bit of news/classifieds in it, I’m sure they also try to pass it off as “serving the public interest as well”.
I cannot WAIT until the error of the newspaper comes to an end.
Our bush league New York Times wannabe has sunk to a new desparate low.
“Why? I don’t know.”
Don,
Well, why didn’t you ASK? If you’d have bothered to call and do a little reporting, I bet irculation director Frank Peak would probably be willing to answer your questions about the papers.
Your distain for the Statesman really comes through when you write about the paper, and it rarely gets a fare shake from you.
- Joe
Joe –
On two different occasions in the past I’ve tried to contact your publisher My calls were not taken. Talking to your circulation director isn’t going to add much. Your employer is doing something that is beyond reproach — dumping unsolicited trash all over town. The reason is not important.
Don,
Two unreturned phone calls in the past is a weak excuse for not making them in the present. It’s my personal opinion that any subject deserves the chance to go on the record. If they decline, then you report that. But they deserve the chance.
Talking to the circulation director definitely would have added something. You could have asked him your “why?” question. I think he’d probably take issue with your classification of the papers as “trash.” Again, I can’t speak for him.
I don’t mean to defend the papers, as I have zero knowledge about them, just to make the point that the Statesman deserved an opportunity to answer your “why” question.
- Joe
(forgot this disclosure the first time: I’m employed by the Statesman)
Editor’s note: I have a ton of respect for Joe and think he’s one of the best guys in local media. He gets the last word.