HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1974-06-05, Page 2BRUSSELS
ONTARIO
"I'm putting him back on food."
IISTAINASINO
'17?
gBrussels Post
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 1974
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community.
Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
by McLean Bros. Publishers, Limited.
Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Tom Haley - Advertising
Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and
Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association.
Subscriptions (in advance) Canadal$6.00 a year, Others
$8.00 a year, Single Copies 15 cents each.
Second class mail Registration No. 0562.
Telephone 887-6641.
15 cents worth
The joys of the newspaper business are many. But
perhaps even more than in other businesses there
are also a few headaches --- mostly as a result of
trying to please all of the people all of the time.
A journalism professor at the University of
Michigan outlined recently what the public expects
from a newspaper. We reprint his comments
(adapted to the Canadian situation) below. Just give
us a minute and let us cry on your shoulder.
"I'm going to give 15 cents to the newspaper staff.
Divide it up any way you. wish. Now for that 15 cents I
am giving you tonight I want you to deliver tomorrow
to my house a newspaper- that will contain more
reading matter than the current best-selling novel.
I want all the news. And I want every bit of it to be
fresh. I want pictures and stories of all local
accidents, fires, meetings and events that I'm
interested in; and I dont want to see any of that
offend me, either. I expect you to tell me who dies,
who was born, who was divorced and who was
married in the last week including the last 24 hours.
I want to know what those guys in Government are
doing with my tax money. I want to understand all
the important events, plans and results but I don't
want to have to waste more than a couple of minutes
on your story.
want to read just as much about. Liberals as about
Conservatives, and just as much about Protestants as
Catholics and Jews, and as much about Eskimos and
Indians as about whites. Don't tell me you can't do it.
That's what I invested my 15 cents for. The only
reason you won't do it is because you don't have any
competition.
I want all the supermarket prices, a list of people
with used cars for sale, the movie and TV times and
the closing stock market prices.
If I get drunk and have a wreck, I don't want you to
print my name in the paper, and I have a friend who
is gettihg a divorce, and you can leave that out, too.
Another thing, I'm sick and tired of misspelled
words in your paper. For 15 cents you ought to do
better.
By the way, I eat promptly at 5 p.m., and my paper
better be at my front door before that. Not on the
steps, not in the rain, not in the front yard.
When i meet you on the street, I expect you to tell
me all the inside dope. I expect you to serve as
publicity chairman for every committee in town, too.
If I call the paper and ask you who won the 1964
Stanley Cup or who was mayor in 1896 I expect you to
know and to tell me. Right then.
Next week I'm going to start my Own business, and
I want a news item about it. A picture would even be
better. Advertising? No, if you run the story and.
picture, I won't need any advertising.
But if you straighten up, i will give you another 15
cents for next week.
Sugar and Spice
By Bill Smiley
Blossom time
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Well, were you alert enough to fill your
gas tank and pick up half a dozen
five-gallon jerrycans of the stuff before the
price soared?
Were you smart enough to ha<ie your
furnace-oil tank filled before the stuff
turned to black gold?
That's funny. Neither was I. In fact, my
wife informed me, the day after gasoline
prices headed for the moon, that we were
riding on a pint anti a prayer.
"Dummy!", I stated. "Dummy yourself,
she retorted. "Why didn't you tell me the
price was going up?"
"Twice-dummy," I responded coolly.
"Why don't you read the ruddy
newspapers?"
"Thrice-dummy", was her unoriginal
answer. "Because you're always hogging
them, and you never talk-to me, and I'm
alone all day and never see anyone, and
you come home and bury your big fat nose
in the newspapers, and I'm sick and tired
• of it."
"Bull-oneyI", I snorted, and we were off
on one of those half-hour deals so popular
with married couples, and from which I
always emerge looking like Archie Bunker.
And there wasn't a bit of truth in her
tirade. I don't hog the papers. I let her
have the classified ads section and the
sports section, when I've finished with it.
She's not home alone all day. She has the
cats. She sees people = the postman and the
garbage men - when they're not on strike.
And I don't have a big, fat nose It's just
big.
I'm disgressing. But I often do that when
I get talking about my helpmeet, my other
half, my chicadee, my Iambic, the Joan to
tny darby, that broad who is driving me
squirrely with talk about spring cleaning.
What I really began to discuss was my
native ability, born knack, or sheer genius,
at missing chances to save money. There
aren't many such chances, in these parlous
times, but every time there is One, I seem
to be out to lunch.
Show me a hydro bill, and I'll show you ,
that it's four days past the deadline for the
discount.By the way, that's one sweet
racket. Hydro sends you a bill, with a
certain "discount if it is paid within a
certain date. That means that Hydro can
get along quite nicely if everyone pays on
time.. Right? Therefore, the "discount" is
no such thing. It's a penalty. Robbers.
Show me an income tax return and
show you that I should have been paying,
and have not been, quarterly, in advance.
So I'm penalized.
Show me a full-page advertisement
featuring a big sale, 50 per cent off
everything, and I'll show you 'that the'
,paper is ten days old and the sale ended
last Saturday.
Show me a big jump in the price of beef
or lettuce, and I'll show you a craving for
red meat and salad.
And my wife is just the same, Show her
six books of wall-paper samples - all good,
st urdy, durable, colorful stuff, and she will
unerringly pick the one that's twice the
price of all the others.
My swim suit invariably springs a leak in
July, before the August sales begin. My
winter boots spring the same thing in
January, before the sales begin.
If I plunge for five shares of a sure-thing
stock, a war starts, or Nixon says
something stupid again, and there's a
stock market slump.
I don't consider this to be a malignant
thing, I dont really believe, though it hat
crossed iny mind, that God has it in for me.
Maybe it's Old Debbi'. At any rate, it
happens too often to be a coincidence, and
I'm getting sick of it, by gum.
A typical was the first Olympic
Sweepstake. I forgot to get a ticket. You'd
think a guy's friends would remind him.
But oh, no. Not them. Too greedy. and I've
a sneaking notion I'd have won the Million
bucks. Boy, would I show my so-called
friends, if I Won that. They wouldn't see
the for gold-dust.
But there is one little area in whidb till
wife and I are infalliblei when it conies to
'saving money: Every year, we pay out
house taxes in January, I think we, save'
about eight dollars. That will show them,
we tell each other solo/it-fly.
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