The Dallas Morning News nears Gomorrah

It's whacked another 40-plus people as ad sales continue to slip. (A 7.5 percent adhole on Christmas Eve, per my tracking of them, is horrendous.)

That's not the worst.

Giving 40 top execs $1.2 million in bonuses for a good financial management job achieved in part by whacking people?

THAT is the worst.

Jim Hightower hits syndication doo-doo

Creators wouldn't pass out Hightower's latest column, because he criticized Dead Fricking Media and Slavehouse Media.

Not the first time a syndicated columnist, or cartoonist, has been kneecapped briefly. But, given media consolidation, to attack particular absentee paper owners will get more perilous.

Eastern front captains and lieutenants

I've heard further to confirm my suspicion that one captain on the eastern front interviewed with a new captain elsewhere on the eastern front and forced the hiring of an editorial lieutenant that that captain didn't want.

Given that this intervening captain later left his outpost, reportedly for a certain type of dereliction of duty, inquiring minds might wonder about what issues might be behind the interventionary hiring of that other editorial lieutenant.

And, ....

Peter Principle at community papers world too

I've repeatedly ranted on Twitter at the likes of Bret Stephens, Bari Weiss, and Tom Friedman, among newer and established members of the NYT op-ed page as example numero uno of the Peter Principle in action.

But, it happens at a lower level, too. Guy who I replaced at one paper and beat me out to run another, which he left less than a year later?

Has left multiple spots after less than a year's to an even year's time, all for non-downsizing reasons, either just quitting or getting fired. The only place he stuck was GateHell, and probably because he couldn't get out.

Currently at a place where ... who knows? (He's been there less than a year, too.) But, it's a place I wanted to be some number of years ago.

It's not just this person, it's just that his is the case I know best.

Sales management issues

In small towns, many businesses don't open until 9 a.m. Therefore, a community newspaper's ad sales people can't do much business before then.

But, they can make hay for sure after the 9 a.m. sun shines.

So, if they're coming in to the office at 8 or 8:30, and you're the ad sales manager, or publisher, and you have sales meetings, shouldn't they be before 9 a.m.?

And, if they were after 9 a.m. at your previous paper, shouldn't you unlearn old habit?

Newspaper struggles in New Mexico

Years and years ago, when on vacations, I would look at newspapers for design ideas — fonts, headers, layout, etc.

Today? I look to see how small of a web the paper is on, how few of pages it has, and how small of an adhole it has.

And, boy, oh boy.

First, the Farmington Daily Times, since my brother lives there.

City is 45K. County is 115K. Paper is a seven-day, and the only daily in town.

Just 16 pages on a Saturday, and no high school football. People are told to see the website.

Early press deadlines? But why? Did they sell their press and now they print in Durango? Weird. Crappy.

==

Grants is about 10,000 people. An hour east of where I grew up.

The Grants Daily Beacon apparently became non-daily a number of years ago, then became the Cibola Beacon, whether as weekly, semi-weekly or tri-weekly, I don't know, then closed at least two years ago. The non-daily Cibola Citizen replaced it.

Weirdly, the Albuquerque Journal made no move to be more aggressive with its Grants coverage.

But the Gallup Independent did. A Mickey D's in Grants had rack boxes for it alone with the Citizen, but no journal. I didn't go inside any C-store to look at either paper.

==

And, the Albuquerque Journal.

A 24-page Monday isn't bad, right? Especially if almost 25 percent ads.

BUT ...

Of those?

More than half were classified. And without reading through each one, more than half of those had liners that said "non-governmental legal." WTF? A special on divorces, wills and pay no bills ads? Clear all those out, and get rid of two pages, and you're at 22 pages, but below 20 percent. Still better than the Fort Worth Startle-Gram, which doesn't say a lot.

More on the kerfufflement in Marlin, Texas

Dear citizens of Marlin, and current and past subscribers to, readers of, and advertising customers with the Marlin Democrat:

In a previous post, I mentioned I felt 'uncomfortable' about some things at the Democrat.

Well, I am going to identify one by name.

IT"s called overcharging advertising customers.

And, I say 'overcharging' rather than 'overbilling' deliberately. That's because of how it works.

The Phillipses have been very aggressive about getting personal as well as business customers to leave credit card information on file, from what I have heard.

Then, they may bill a person twice, three times, or even six times for an ad that was only supposed to appear once.

Like a classified ad for a garage sale. No need to run that six times. (That's confirmed from a customer.)

It's overbilling rather than overcharging if the customer has a credit card on file and, say, once a month, gets a new billing for that same classified ad.

I talked directly to this particular person and I take their word at it, as I have heard similar things happened to others.

Accident? Possible. But, the more often it happens, the less likely it seems an accident.

I saw an ad for a nonprofit group out of Hearne, a combination ad for both papers, that was still listed on a 'run sheet' of ads the week after their big event was done.

Having already heard what I listed above, I didn't run the ad in the Marlin paper. Even if it was an accident, it didn't need to run. If this, too, was deliberate, I wanted to be no part of this.

Nor of this practice in general.

As I noted, this was a combination ad, sold out of the Hearne office.

Whether such things were done deliberately in Hearne before they took over the Marlin papers, I don't know.

But I can't stop others from speculating.

I have now shared this with a few more people.