ash had a real blast writing this one. She loves to amuse herself:
I didn’t even look until after I had replied to the query. My response was automatic and uncensored. “Would you like a free State Journal-Register?” Chuckle. “No, thanks.” Then I turned to the speaker as he flinched, stationed in front of a grocery cart by the fresh vegetables and sale-priced poultry, stacked with the day’s edition.* Poor working stiff; his job level precluded his complicity in the paper’s diminished value yet demanded his frontline exposure to the consequential humiliation.
A few moments later I heard his voice again. “This copy of the paper is free, but we’d like you to sign this form and consider subscribing.” Classic gimmick. I turned to a woman with a tentative expression, suspended in mid-acceptance of the sample. Uh oh, was it really no strings attached? she was asking herself. Or was there something in the document’s fine print compelling her financial support?
I don’t know if she ultimately bit. By the time she finished weighing the true costs of her options I was in the next aisle, vaguely wondering whether this particular Shop ‘n’ Save, in a decidedly working class neighborhood, was likely to yield enough takers to substantiate the effort. Papers are pennies but this guy’s time might or might not be spent more productively elsewhere. If a wealth of potential customers resides in a certain community, by the same token there’s a reason they’re not customers already. As far as I knew other hawkers could have fanned across Springfield, Sangamon County, and beyond. Or some clever marketer may have selected this particular franchise on this particular day to coincide with a “Buy $50, get “$10 off” promotion to take advantage of a larger crowd thus that much more bang for their buck. Piggybacking the other vendor’s come-on does make business sense.
That night the delivery office called me at home. It registered on my caller ID – as the organization though I recognized the department’s number - but whoever dialed hung up mid second ring. Don’t know about you, but I never answer that quickly. Since I dropped my subscription months ago I’ve been called numerous times and picked up the several that made it to three rings. My rule is they don’t wait a reasonable number; I don’t call back to find out what they wanted. The first couple times what they wanted was for me to renew. I told them no, explained exactly why, fully cognizant that the message would never reach its target but content with the mild satisfaction of the “and furthermore.” Then about halfway from there (the onset of my cancellation) to here (the grocery store) somebody excitedly offered me a half-off deal which I patiently rejected on the same basis, adding “You and your cohorts really ought to cross-check your list against the one with the newly disenfranchised, since we’re about the most unlikely to be worth bothering soliciting so soon.” She actually thanked me for the advice.
Since no one’s called since then I’m left to speculate that the aborted attempt was part of the subscription drive and that, even though the woman who got through last time seemed to appreciate my suggestion, I’m still somehow considered worthy of another pitch. Newspapers are suffering, obviously, not only from cyberspace competition in all sorts of formats but from these encroaching “citizen journalists,” maybe in their parents’ basement and maybe in their pajamas but usually not. Some of them have got degrees just like the professionals, some of them are as adept at news gathering and writing as the professionals, and all of them are as threatening as all get-out. That’s not fair, that they get to do, with varying degrees of success and monetary compensation, what the big shots had to go to school to do in order to make a living. But it’s what technology has wrought and, rather than ignore, disdain, or will them away, owners and publishers are wise to provide an online alternative. Anyhow, I doubt the guy giving away papers, or the handful of employees who have reached me via telephone, are particularly concerned with the industry’s panoply of woes as long as their jobs are secure. There is something reassuring - and personal – about a hand-held version of the paper versus the one on the aloof computer screen.
*may be changed to stationed in front of a grocery cart, stacked with the day’s edition, by the fresh vegetables and sale-priced poultry.