Competition in any business sometimes brings out the worst in us and I'm afraid that the lovely people who remain at the Blue Ridge Business Journal are telling those who'll listen a distinct untruth about those of who used to run it.
The word being spread (I have a written copy of what's being said) is that when Tom Field and I were at the BJ, we gave away news space in trade for advertising. That is not true. It never was true. We fought those requests daily, lost a number of advertisers over the requests during our years there and never regretted our stand that editorial was separate and independent from advertising. Some publications in this region regularly trade editorial content for advertising revenue and advertisers use those examples to demand the same treatment from those of us who do not do that.
This is slander and it is intentionally misleading in order to degrade the product we built over the years, one that was respected and held in enough regard that we won many, many awards from our industry and the community for our efforts.
I will say distinctly and without reservation that our policy of keeping advertising and news separate remains strong at Valley Business FRONT. Our direction is slightly different and our emphasis is not the same as it was, but our integrity is intact and we intend to keep it that way, regardless of what's being said by those without a clue.
No comments:
Post a Comment