It is without question the No 1 thing readers ask me about any time I engage anyone in public.
Why is there so much bad news in the Daily Times? I suppose the same would hold true for our website, DelcoTimes.com.
I always reply with the same, simple answer: That's what people read.
I am in the business of selling newspapers, and drawing eyeballs to our website. I would like to sell as many of them as I can every day. Now, before you jump up and scream, "I told you so," I do not believe that is the most important part of my job.
But it is one aspect of it.
The other comment always hurled at me, usually by a person who is upset by something we have done, goes something like this: You only put that story on the front page of your rag to sensationalize the story and sell more newspapers.
Maybe. They say controversy sells.
Just ask the people at Rolling Stone.
Just a few weeks back, the editors there were under siege for a cover story and the image that graced their front page, a picture of surviving Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. A lot of people thought the mag was glorifying a terrorist, in effect giving him "rock star" treatment, a reference to Rolling Stone's usual front page fare.
Several big retail chains joined a boycott, indicating they would not sell the magazine.
Well, the results are in. Retails sales of that issue were 102 percent higher than the same time last year. Rolling Stone sold 13,232 copies, more than double its average monthly sales.
Please don't take that as confirmation that sales are the only barometer I use in deciding what goes on Page One every day. But I can tell you that it is one of them.
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