MMMM # 97 - Media Sidewalk Sale

     It struck me as out of the ordinary last week when I spotted two folks sitting at a folding table on the pavement outside the T.J. Max in Montgomery, selling subscriptions to the Montgomery Advertiser. I know things have been tough in the past few years for all of the media, perhaps newspapers more than any other. But pitching papers on the sidewalk?

   Apparently it has been going on for a while in Montgomery...like eleven years! So says the owner of the independent business that operates the sales tables. And to be honest, there were plenty of customers not only coming up but signing up too.
   There were incentives...coupons for discounts or freebies from various companies that came with each subscription. And Billy Grier, the sales guy in the photo, has an outgoing personality that seemed to pull the customers in.
   They'll be at Jubilee CityFest on May 22nd and the 28th and 29th, so stop and say hello. If nothing else, you'll get a free paper!
   And subscribe too! Newspapers are an important part of the community.

[PLUS: There's an old saying "Don't screw up on a slow news day"...but the opposite is also true. Never have a natural disaster on a busy news day. Such was the case in Nashville, with its once-in-a-lifetime flood. Howard Kurtz has a column on media indifference to that disaster in the Washington Post.]
[AND ALSO: A column on Politico.com this morning expresses amazement at some of the political commercials running here in Alabama. Y'all come visit more often. We love strange TV spots here.]