When I was growing up we always received a daily newspaper. Our town was too small to have more than a weekly newspaper, so the paper we received was from a larger city 80 miles to the east. We’d read the comics and sometimes scan the headlines. There would be occasional school assignments that sent us to the newspaper for specific articles. And, of course, newspaper was useful for starting fires, sopping up puppies’ “mistakes,” protecting floors from painting projects, collecting the seeds when carving pumpkins, and a host of other household chores. A sheet of newspaper and a little vinegar can make windows sparkle. My first venture into the newspaper business was a four-year stint as a delivery boy. The way the system worked, I purchased the papers from the publisher and resold them to my customers. I had to make collections every month and pay for my papers. I had to allow for the occasional paper that was lost or damaged and I had to keep my customers happy by delivering the papers before they got up in the morning. The franchise was passed down to my little brothers when I found other jobs in my teenage years.

In college, I wrote a bit for our college paper and, for a little over a year, was editor and writer for an alternative college weekly newsletter. I learned about deadlines and a bit about reporting. I didn’t receive a daily newspaper in those years, but since my work study job was opening the library each morning, I had access to the daily paper as I put the copies on the racks in the reading room. I also had a steady supply of newspaper when needed as I took the old copies off of the racks and put them into the garbage. I had a small role in moving our library into paper recycling and used my old newspaper boy skills to bundle stacks of newsprint for recycling.

When we got married we still weren’t newspaper subscribers, but often would tread ourselves to a copy of the Sunday paper from the newsstand. When we moved to Chicago the Sunday Tribune became a bit of a habit, the walk to and from the newsstand just the right length for a Sunday morning. I worked on seminary publications and for a while ran a small newsletter at the seminary and another at the health clinic where I interned.

It wasn’t long after we had completed our seminary education and become settled in our first parish that we subscribed to a daily newspaper as well as the weekly paper of our small town. We also started a monthly newsletter in our parish. From that time on we have always held a subscription to a weekly paper and have produced a monthly church newsletter. When we were called to a congregation in Boise Idaho, we switched papers and after a few years there I began working for a small publisher of two weekly small town newspapers. As is often the case with part-time jobs, this one swelled and after the sudden death of the publisher I became publisher of both papers for a short time until they could be sold to new owners. I make the proposals and supervised the purchase of the first computers and software for those small newspapers and learned a lot about managing subscriber databases, printing labels, and computerized page layout.

So I know a little bit about the newspaper business.

I know that as annoying as are the advertising stickers our paper puts across the headlines on the paper - you know the ones that will tear the page when you remove them if you aren’t careful - and as annoying as the full screen popup ads that block your view of the online version - newspapers exist first of all to sell advertisements. It isn’t as simple as they don’t care about their subscribers, but the primary revenue source that makes or breaks the success of a newspaper is not subscriptions. To simplify a more complex process. Subscribers count because the amount you can charge for advertising is based on the number of papers you distribute. Subscribers enable and pay for distribution of the paper. They are a necessary operating cost. As such you have to sell newspapers to sell advertising. So a newspaper has to keep subscribers. In order to keep subscribers, the paper has to print news. If there is nothing to attract readers, they will loose readers which means losing ad revenue. Newspaper reporting and writing is driven by the advertising market. It works quite a bit differently in online publishing and I’m no expert on how those numbers work.

The bottom line is that each sticker put on the front of my newspaper is a sign that advertising is more important than news to the paper’s publisher. Since news is more important than advertising to me, I have steadfastly boycotted the businesses that are advertised by stickers on the newspaper. This silent protest, even the one exception I made to participate in a local toxic waste cleanup day, has gone unnoticed by the newspaper and its advertisers and has had no effect on the practice.

It has, however, given me an attitude about stickers.

I now not only can rant on and on about the stickers on the paper, but also about stickers on lots of other items. A few weeks ago I purchased a new wide blade for finishing sheetrock. There was a barcode label on the blade to ease checkout at the store. That sticker could not be peeled from the blade with my fingernails. I managed to get it off with a razor blade, but it left adhesive marring the surface of the tool. Soap and water would not remove the adhesive. Alcohol would not remove the adhesive. I had to use an industrial solvent to get the blade clean enough to use the tool. In my temper tantrum I railed against the sticker.

I have no idea why I got mad at the sticker instead of the person who made the decision to put the sticker on the working blade of the tool when it would have served the same function on the handle without interfering in the use of the tool.

So here is the bottom line for the business folks. Yes, stickers work. They get my attention. And if you can endure by diatribes and temper tantrums, go ahead and use your stupid stickers. It seems to boost the sale of industrial solvents.

In the meantime, I'm seriously considering dropping daily delivery of the newspaper. I'm back to the comics being the only thing I read these days.

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