Erosion of Morris paper continues apace

The vanishing Morris newspaper has reached the point where maybe some sort of community meeting should be held. Even if the paper rebounds some in the coming weeks, its ridiculously small size on Saturday is unacceptable. I heard talk about it at church.
It was at church that I was able to personally examine that pile of what gets marketed as the Morris paper, much of it dumpster-ready advertising circulars from Alexandria-based businesses (including "your hometown Sears store"). As Stephen Colbert said, "who shops at Sears anymore?"
Notice how we're required to pay the same single-copy price for the Morris newspaper. Maybe Willie's should tell the paper: "We don't think our customers should have to pay for the Morris paper anymore." The outstanding Senior Perspective along with the interesting University Register are available free. Even though I know the Register is free, I always confirm it with the Casey's clerk as I go out the door. It feels funny to just grab something there and walk out the door.
Of course it's free. But in the display stand right next to it, we see the Forum-owned papers that we have to pay for. A clerk there told me years ago that some customers were incredulous about the Wednesday edition of the Morris paper being cancelled. Also, I personally overheard a customer, sounding exasperated, saying "did they already start that?" when the paper went to once a week. It was such a habit to expect two issues a week, like through all the years when I worked there.
And boy, some sports parents were insistent about how certain games had to be covered in the very next issue. They'd get emotional if they weren't. I remember a member of school administration who similarly got his panties in a bundle. His discomfort about that reached the point where he felt he had to start writing sports himself, voluminous amounts of it. The usual suspects around town thought it was just great he was doing that. But what about now? What about now when the Morris paper is just once a week and down to an unbelievably small ten pages?
Adding shock to it all, the paper thinks we're stupid enough to believe that the old Hancock Record is now incorporated with the Morris paper. I have heard talk about how the paper seems to have bent over backwards giving attention to Hancock since the announced "combination." But if the paper is steadily shrinking, it is literally impossible for the paper to be accomplishing this. I don't have to point that out to you, do I?
I left the Morris paper when management was talking about how its website was going to be made so super spectacular. Has that happened? The paper would only do this if the approach could be monetized. I remember a period of time when our radio station site was made rather dynamic for local news coverage, but then there was a retreat. Again, it could not be monetized well enough.
I have written before that the time is coming when the coverage and PR for high school sports is going to have to establish itself online, in a reasonably consistent and reliable way - not scattershot - independent of the old corporate media. Ten years ago I thought that time was coming soon. I was wrong. Sports promoters should realize that communications outreach is important for these activities which compete for resources with the rest of the school. Look at how UMM sports gets covered so reliably on the UMM website. That's a model that ought to filter down to high school.
Would the Morris paper management say that the shrinking of its paper is due to unavoidable economic pressures? Then why does it seem that the Elbow Lake paper is about three times bigger? Maybe in the short term, the Morris paper is raking in a quite exorbitant profit. This is done with the knowledge that the end of newspapers really is coming. So let's make hay in the short term, the reasoning goes. There is a term for this in the business world: "harvesting."
I wonder if Willie's would consider offering the Morris paper free as a "loss leader." Just let customers grab a copy. And you know what? All those Alexandria advertisers would actually like that, because their ads would get in front of more people. Jim Gesswein would like that.
Come to think of it, the Canary is shrinking quite noticeably too. It's 12 pages this week. The Morris paper has canceled its free Ad-Viser. The Ad-Viser would have been a nice vehicle to distribute those Morris sports schedule flyers. As it stands now, those flyers only get to people who buy the Morris paper - a limited number. And, I was struck by how the type size seemed smaller for the winter sports schedule flyer, so I have to get out my reading glasses. Now, why would the type size be smaller? Do I have to tell you? The paper is trying to sell a few more of those ad boxes including names of the businesses. These are called "sucker ads" in the newspaper business. Do us a favor and back off from those so we might read the schedule info a little easier.
The Forum is so unapologetic in how it maximizes profit. That is not an uncommon credo in business these days. But it would be nice to be pleasantly surprised sometimes. We are not, here in Morris.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com