Photo Courtesy of Flickr/Edward Schwan
At The Forum, we love when readers call us. We get all kinds of calls, mostly positive, occasionally negative. Why didn’t my paper get delivered this week? Where are your distribution sites? Can I place a classified ad? We especially love it when you call with story ideas, some of which are very good. When there’s even the tiniest nugget of interest in a story that might have wider appeal for our readership, we follow up on your ideas and then try to use you in the story in some way, provided you want us to. Readers have called to suggest stories on airplane noise mitigation grants, sanitation issues, and the storm that just keeps on “giving,” Sandy, and its myriad, continuing, and devastating aftereffects. Usually, if we can’t do a story, we try to help in other ways, by providing phone numbers for local businesses or attempting to connect you with people or institutions that might be more suited to providing assistance.
Lately we’ve received a number of calls regarding the word puzzles we like to include on page 20 (or thereabouts) when we have space. One reader, having previously been supplied with back issues because she’d missed picking up copies specifically for the purpose of completing the puzzles, called to express grave “concern” that she hadn’t been seeing them in recent issues.
But we’d like you to know that in this case, what’s concerning for you is good news for us. If you’re not aware, the absence of the puzzle means that we’ve sold an ad (or several) in its place. While we try to offer the word search and “Crypto Fun” when we can, not in place of substantive news, but as a gift to our readers who love it so, the ability to give that gift comes because of all the times that we don’t give it. If we didn’t ever sell ads, we’d have to stop publishing the paper.
A recent check of Amazon.com revealed a tremendous variety of word search puzzle books available at almost every price, including .01 plus shipping. Of course, we’re not telling you to buy a puzzle book in place of reading The Forum, but if that’s the only reason you pick up the paper, you might be missing the point. It’s like telling a pizzeria they should start carrying hummus and dolma – it’s really not what they’re about, even if the guy making pizza is Greek and regardless of how many customers might enjoy the additional menu selections.
Advertisers know what we’re about, and that’s why they’re filling our pages lately and thus enabling us to do our “real” jobs better. They know our ads are professionally and artistically created, with a keen eye for detail and the best interests of the businesses in mind, and they also know that our full page ads are significantly larger than most, if not all, of our competitors’. They know that our readers keep coming back for more than just the puzzle page. Trust us, if we could, we’d give you your hummus every week. We’re glad, though, that instead we’re able to offer you the best pizza money can buy.
