tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266566846399659219.post6813955461246666019..comments2024-01-16T00:30:02.493-05:00Comments on That's the Press, Baby: L.S. Macy's & Co.Davisullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871644412923946894noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266566846399659219.post-86453231363971811632008-08-31T06:08:00.000-04:002008-08-31T06:08:00.000-04:00Hi, I like your blog. I see you are talking about ...Hi, I like your blog. I see you are talking about <A HREF="http://macys.pissedconsumer.com" REL="nofollow">Macys</A> here. Well, I used to be their constant customer, then after a certain accident I stopped going there. In some time my friends too. I went to this great site www.pissedconsumer.com to see if anyone else had problems with the company and it turned out that my friends and I were not alone.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266566846399659219.post-40506476852837541812008-03-06T16:06:00.000-05:002008-03-06T16:06:00.000-05:00I'm just catching up with the blog after being sic...I'm just catching up with the blog after being sick and I wanted to comment on this post, even though you have newer ones.<BR/><BR/>This reminds me of when I worked for the Suburban Journals in St. Louis. The large suburban weekly chain was owned by two St. Louisans, but after I was there a few years, Ralph Ingersol came in and bought it. His experience, at the time was East Coast suburban newsapers (and junk bonds, but that's a different story.)<BR/><BR/>Anyway, the first thing he did was make a lot of content changes that took the papers away from the community news, fish fries, school board coverage model and moved them more toward entertainment and style, with a mix of breaking news. (At one time, I worked with a corral of up to 55 stringers who would cover 70-plus board meetings a week. Fire boards, sewer district boards ... boards the dailies in St. Louis couldn't cover, but to which people paid taxes nonetheless.)<BR/><BR/>Right away a group of editors told Ingersol's imported news director that the East Coast model wouldn't work. People read the Journals because they wanted to know what their school board was doing and where the trivia nights and spaghetti dinners were being held.<BR/><BR/>That didn't stop the change, which did cut into readership. Before the year was out, we were resuming some of the things that had previously made the Suburban Journals very profitable.<BR/><BR/>Same with Macy's. I know a lot of people in St. Louis who wish Famous-Barr was back. The idea that a national chain can carry the same products in every store seems somewhat ill-conceived to me. That's why food chains are usually regional -- food choices differ from region to region.<BR/><BR/>And I think people don't want the same thing from their print paper as their Web paper -- at least at the type of community newspaper where I am employed. The number one thing my copy desk gets calls about is leaving Junior's name off the Dean's List story. Moms still want to cut that out and put it in a scrapboosk.<BR/>On the Web, people like to take polls and see slideshows and leave comments. <BR/>So it seems like the print and online products can work in tandem.Gerri Berendzenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15856152841616480512noreply@blogger.com