Fun While It Lasted — By Tommy Purser

I suspect that I get more unsolicited emails than most folks around here.
I suspect it for two reasons — I get a LOT of unsolicited emails and, as a general rule, people wanting to spread the word about things generally think the news media route is a good one to take.
For decades, as a newspaper editor/publisher, I’ve had people to reach out to me to spread their news, their ideas, information about what they have to sell — preferably if they can get that information out for free.
But, here’s the deal: Newspapers exist because of paid advertising.
Paid advertising keeps this newspaper in business. It keeps our doors open. It pays our bills.
We love to sell newspapers but, contrary to popular opinion, the money we bring in selling our newspapers isn’t enough to keep us in business. It doesn’t even cover our weekly printing costs.
Lots of times people criticize newspapers by saying they print sensational news, spread salacious stories, expose public corruption, reveal public misdeeds, etc., just to sell newspapers.
Bull hockey.
We don’t make money selling newspaper. We can’t make money that way. In fact, sometimes it costs us to print such news.
We need paid advertising to stay in business.
There was a time when we ran grand opening/ribbon cutting photos in the Ledger as a way of thanking advertisers for their business. When they purchased an advertisement in the Ledger to announce their grand openings, we were so appreciative of their business that, in return, we would go to their grand opening/ribbon cutting, take a photo and run that photo in the Ledger for free.
But things have changed.
Today, new businesses expect us to run their grand opening/ribbon cuttings for free and announce in the paper along with the photo that folks should look on Facebook to learn the latest about their business.
So, today, we begrudgingly run the photos with a forced smile but quietly leave out the Facebook mention.
For my first four decades in the newspaper business, paid advertising was the way local businesses got the word out about the products and services they had to offer. In small towns across the country, locally owned newspapers and radio stations were where local businesses spent their advertising dollars. And, in return, those locally owned newspapers and radio stations kept their communities informed about local news and advertising.
People read their newspapers and listened to their radio stations. The newspapers reported on local happenings and the radio stations had local news programs. And small town folks gathered around their radios every time the local football/basketball/baseball teams had games. Every small town needed a strong local newspaper and a strong local radio station.
Then came technological advances, including social media.
Small newspapers can’t afford to print the volume of news they did in the past and people can no longer listen to locals sports on their radios.
I recall when major daily newspapers across the country — and across the world — first began feeling the effects of the rise of social media. Those big newspapers began to print fewer pages, cut back on distribution, went from morning and afternoon editions to one edition a day, went from seven days a week, to six, then to five, then …. down it went.
Fifty years ago I had three newspapers a day delivered to my home. Every morning I read The Macon Telegraph, The Savannah Morning News and the Atlanta Constitution at my kitchen table.
I got so many newspapers that former Sheriff Jimmy Boatright, who delivered newspapers locally long before he became sheriff, put up two newspaper boxes in my front yard because the three newspapers he delivered wouldn’t fit into one box.
Today, I don’t even have ONE newspaper box in front of my home because I can’t get ANY newspapers delivered here.
Yeah, things have changed. We don’t have a locally owned radio station here like we did when the late John Hulett lived on Hulett Farm Road and owned WVOH (“The Voice Of Hazlehurst) Radio Station.
And it won’t be long before we will no longer have a locally owned newspaper.
Well, it was fun while it lasted.