PUBLISHER'S POINT OF VIEW
Another corporate slap
by Robert Hooftallen

My colleague across county, Donald Gilliland, has defended his corporation's decision to increase the newsstand price at the Potter Leader-Enterprise by 25 percent to $1.25 per copy.

Despite his way with words and his rationale, I know his heart and his words are in different corners on this issue.

To me, the move once again demonstrates the disconnect between the corporate ownership of that formerly local business, headquartered hundreds of miles from here, and those people in Potter County who are being hurt the most by their greed.

As he clearly noted, Gilliland "barked" to no avail. And believe me, to know Donald is to know that he would protest- very loudly, I would bet.

But it didn't matter. You'll still pay $1.25.

The real issue is that Donald's barking fell on deaf ears. He is the one person who knows that corporation's customers better than anyone else, yet he has no say. He and the rest of the staff are merely Community Media Group's local "enablers."

If you'd like to peer behind the curtain in that particular land of Oz, you can start by visiting communitymediagroup.com. It's always an adventure to sort through the smokescreen and see what's real after a newspaper transfers from local ownership to a profit-driven newspaper chain.

And that's not all. They've got us surrounded. They also "manage" the Bradford Era, Olean Times Herald, Port Allegany Reporter Argus, Wellsboro Gazette and Westfield Free Press Courier.

That's a lot of buck-twenty fives, let alone thousands of dollars in advertising flowing each week from local cash registers to a company that's closer to the banks of the Mississippi River than to the Allegheny.

We're told the price increase will help the corporation make ends meet. I say that's feed for people fool enough to consume it.

It's obvious that profits are falling to the point where this little link in the long chain can't carry enough weight for corporate investors. Having already hammered area businesses, community organizations and other advertisers again and again with rate increases, Community Media Group is reaching into another pot of gold for 25 percent more revenue each week.

And I can't let this go without mentioning the oftenmisunderstood line item that has those corporate pencil-pushers beaming: legal advertising. County offices, school districts, boroughs, townships, lawyers and other institutions are required to advertise certain things.

Recognizing that for the cash cow that it can be, especially back when Coudersport was a one-newspaper town, the

Leader-Enterprise cranked up its legal advertising rates to reach more deeply into the pockets of taxpayers and others who foot those bills.

Such as, it cost the Coudersport Area School District taxpayers close to $11 per column inch, over $1 per word just to run an ad seeking a new superintendent, for example.

Lastly, I sincerely commend

the reporters at the Leader-

Enterprise for their numerous awards for excellence in this category and that. In an earlier era- and I saw this first hand- the news staff there was too busy covering local news to spend the time and incur the expense necessary to apply for these ego-boosting solicited pats on the back.

As I leaf through each edition, I typically see a lot more news space filled with material that could hardly be described as journalistic excellence - much less LOCAL news. Long, self-serving news releases from the Game Commission, theories on the origins of life from philosophers at some faraway university, and lengthy dialogue on topics such as homosexuality or the changing alignment of the planets may make for interesting reading, but it's not what I expect from my local newspaper.

Here at Endeavor News, we consider every inch of every page to be a precious piece of real estate. You deserve no less.

Back to my original point. The latest deepening of that corporation's reach into local pockets at a time when we can least afford it is yet another case of those in the ivory tower many miles away maintaining their lifestyle at our expense.

And we take another one on the chin from a corporate giant. But this time there's a choice..