NEWSPAPER "STRATEGERY"

I just looked at the “Framingham TAB” newspaper’s column of “Religion listings” (or  “Worship listings” or whatever they call them).  As usual, it looked poorly laid out and hard to read.  I decided to kind of get back at them and give my amazing and true “story behind the story” regarding the local Religion listings.

Most of you know that the parent newspaper of the Framingham TAB is the MetroWest Daily News.  (Well, the company that owns the Daily News bought out the TAB about ten years ago and essentially turned it into a weekly version of the MWDN.)  When I arrived in Framingham in early 1987, the MetroWest Daily News was then the “Middlesex News”.  They used to carry free (pretty well laid out; well MUCH better than the current TAB listings) church and synagogue listings along with pretty good local “Religion” coverage.  I had a professional black & white glossy photo of my wife and I taken, and I submitted the photo along with information of my having assumed the pastorate of First Assembly of God of Framingham.  In the next Religion section the photo was run along with a story that said, “Rev. Baris Takes the Helm”.  BARIS!  Not Baril.  Not even Boris!  BARIS!  I didn’t even bother asking for a correction to be run, although TODAY I would do that.

About a year later, the paper decided to eliminate free church and synagogue listings.  Each church received an advertising solicitation encouraging us to place weekly ads.  Well, the big churches with money did just that, but most churches did not.  I wondered if I submitted a little article just talking about what I’d be preaching on, or who my guest speaker would be- that sort of thing- would the paper print it? They did!  Next week, they did again!  Next week, they did again!  I began to tip off clergy friends about this way to get “free advertising”.  Soon there were three of these little blurbs a week, then ten, then more than ten.  We kept this up for a number of years.   Finally the paper caught on.  My strategy allowed churches to essentially get free advertising which was frankly better than the old church listing thing they ran in the 1980s.  The paper countered by starting a Religion news column on Thursdays to which items could be submitted by e-mail, and they started another free church and synagogue listing, but it was not well laid out.  Well, it was exactly the format that now appears in the TAB!  Even so, each week, I would continue to send in my blurb, just as if nothing had happened.  WOULD they change my listing each week? They often, but not always, did!  That went on for a few years.

Two years ago, the paper dropped the free church listings but kept Bonnie Gouveia’s Religion news column.  The Framingham clergy complained, but the paper pulled the, “We’re not in business to give free church listings” bit.  As a concession, they returned the church listings to the TAB but not to the MetroWest Daily News.  And, what did I do?  Nothing. I still send in a weekly blurb each week!  Does it make any difference?  Sometimes it actually does, but usually it doesn’t.  I will say there’s a bunch of inaccurate stuff on that whole church listing page which should be corrected.  

Has this “strategery” all been kind of a game for me?  Truthfully, YES!  And, truthfully, this is the first that I’ve actually said anything about it!

“I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee:
 (III John 13)