Not from the Times…
On Wednesday, the St. Pete Times had a scoop piece suggesting that Tampa Bay Devil Ray Elijah Dukes threatened his wife. Sports stars almost never get in trouble, so the big story ran on the front page.
But if you went to the Devil Rays ballgame Wednesday, you couldn’t buy that newspaper there. That irritated Times reader Aaron Peter, who was told by TBT/Times distribution that a decision was made to not stock that edition of the Times at the ballpark.
“Not so!” says circulation manager Craig Holley. They only meant to make fewer papers available. However, signals got crossed, and ALL the Trop papers were held back by accident.
That’s right – a communications company had a breakdown in communications.
I don’t know about this. It’s convenient to say “mistakes were made.” The paper is too damn cozy with the ball team.
Mariella
2 years ago
The Times says, “Because our executives knew the Dukes story might upset some fans, they decided to cancel the distribution of charity papers; unfortunately, by the time circulation got the news, the order garbled into withholding all newspapers.”
Even holding back SOME papers from the very audience who would be most interested in the story is censorship. And their only excuse for holding back ALL the papers is that they only meant to hold back the ones that they don’t make money on? That’s money-grubbin’ censorship.
tommy
2 years ago
I agree.. even holding back some papers is questionable. If tomorrow’s paper is about Tampa Bay’s most dangerous mall, will there be none available in Brandon?
Or is it just when a “partner” is involved?
The Times is on a slippery slope with this, and no one is asking questions.
Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog » Blog Archive » it's your times, but their words
2 years ago
[...] in May the Times chose not to offer the newspaper at Tropicana Field the day that Elijah Dukes was on the front… for threatenening his wife. The Times mumbled something about miscommunication, and the [...]