I hate my local newspaper

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The Pasadena Star-News has this despicable marketing practice where they send high school kids to your door to tug at your heartstrings by saying they can earn enough money for college if you subscribe. If you say you’re not interested, they plead with you: aw, come on, just try it for a trial period and then you can cancel it, you’ll be helping me out.

I do not want the damn Star-News even for a trial period. I already subscribed a number of years ago, and canceled because I was sick of their conservative slant. I have called up the Star-News offices to ask that they stop using kids, to no avail. They just keep sending 'em, year after year. This is yet another reason why education and free enterprise should not be mixed.

This evening, when yet another hopeful student knocked at my door and asked me to try a trial subscription for $13, this is what I said:

“Here’s $13, have a nice time in college. You keep it, don’t give it to the paper. Say, can you do me a favor since I just gave you $13? Tell the Star-News to stop sending kids to my door, because I really hate the Star-News.”

The kid grinned and said he would tell them not to go to my address anymore. I don’t know if that will work. A liberal just has no chance against corporate fascist marketing.

Those of you who’ve read my panhandling thread over in IMHO know that sometimes I’m a soft touch, other times a hard case. I think I was a little bit of both in this case.

2

Let’s see… I can say the almost same thing about the Clarion-Liberal, also known as the Clarion Liar. They only have a passing acquaintence with reality and the truth.

3

Same here. Where I live, it’s the Greenfield Recorder (a.k.a. the Greenfield Distorter). My problem with them is not their political slant, but their complete lack of competence. Their paper is full of bad grammar, piss-poor punctuation, spelling mistakes and factual errors. It’s a joke that these people are passing themselves off as professional journalists. They couldn’t quote a source accurately to save their collective lives. My father and girlfriend are both involved in local politics, and are frequently misquoted. It’s painful to watch, really. I know I could go scan the front page right now and find at least three or four glaring errors without even trying very hard.