CHUCK MOSS

   ^{State Representative    40th District}

Toll-Free  877-707-MOSS

^{CONTACT ME!              STATE OF MICHIGAN             EYE ON OAKLAND}

I'm With Chuck!! 

COLUMNS

You Gotta Be Kidding!!!

DO WHAT I DO, NOT WHAT I SAY, DEPT. 

DO WHAT I DO, NOT WHAT I SAY, PART 2

UPDATE: Stamped REJECT!

The FREE PRESS was unimpressed. Editorial Page Editor Ron Dzwonkowski rejected the "Do What I Do..." piece (See below..) with a courteous email "we will decline, thanks. I'd have preferred the analogy with some other business."  No doubt. 

However, the analogy with the newspaper business was the precise point. The laws of economics apply equally to the DETROIT FREE PRESS  as to state government, and the FREEP management behaves accordingly. Maybe someday the Editorial Page will quit denouncing those who do what the FREEP does--not what it says.

DO WHAT I DO, NOT WHAT I SAY, DEPT.

We all know THE DETROIT FREE PRESS, Michigan's archetype MSM, liberal newspaper. We read its left-ish editorials every day, its scorn and abuse of conservatives, its "narrative" that carries from movie reviews to the comics page. That's what the Freep says. But what does the FREE PRESS do? Read on.

New year, new opportunities, same old challenges. Lansing faces the same issues that led to so much dysfunction in 2007. Everybody wants to talk about Michigan’s issues and what state government needs to do. But instead, let’s not talk about Lansing, let’s talk about the DETROIT FREE PRESS.

What is the DETROIT FREE PRESS? It’s a newspaper; that is, it’s an organization whose function is to produce a product—a newspaper--every day. It has revenue—income—that comes from various sources. It has expenses—expenditures—that it must pay to produce that product. The income is the plus side, the expenses are the minus side. Every day the DETROIT FREE PRESS has to produce and distribute its product and keep the plus side higher than the minus. Every day.

Product, Revenue, Cost, Competition.

The product of the DETROIT FREE PRESS is words on paper, delivered to homes and various points of sale. To produce this product, you need—well, paper—and people to write the words. Since the FREE PRESS is a newspaper, it has to have people to get news and write them into stories ("reporters.") Editors decide what stories to print and exercise quality control. Photographers and graphics people add visuals, production folks make the product, Salespeople sell. It costs money to pay people.

Revenue comes from several sources, mainly advertising. Advertising is a factor of circulation—how many people buy the newspaper. The DETROIT FREE PRESS has competition, so it can’t automatically raise revenue by simply raising prices. The higher the price the fewer people will buy, the lower the circulation. Ditto for advertising: too high prices mean fewer buy, hence lower revenue. (Call this the "Laffer Curve!")

Now the FREE PRESS has a challenge: as the current economy is poor, people are cutting costs, such as print advertising. However, the FREE PRESS has to keep generating the product and not only can’t let quality slide, but must improve its quality and expand the offerings. For example, the FREE PRESS is now online, which is offered for free but costs money to provide and maintain.

What can Lansing learn from the FREE PRESS?

So how does THE DETROIT FREE PRESS stay in business? It cuts costs without sacrificing quality. It prioritizes. For example, the FREE PRESS uses Associated Press wire services instead of hiring reporters to cover news in Europe, Africa, or Washington D.C. It buys features from wire services instead of keeping staff book reviewers, movie critics, and TV reporters. It makes reporters cover multiple beats and become experts in different fields rather than hire more people. It no longer publishes a Sunday magazine.

THE DETROIT FREE PRESS keeps its labor costs down. Ten years ago it resisted union demands and fought a bitter strike. Strikes are a terrible, devastating thing, but this may be one reason why the FREE PRESS is around today to hire anyone at all. What the FREE PRESS can’t do is give automatic raises, jobs-for-life, payroll-padding work rules, or blank-check benefit promises that are demonstrably unsustainable fiscally.

THE DETROIT FREE PRESS does not sacrifice quality, nor expect its readers to accept shoddy product as a trade-off for cost. Whatever the FREE PRESS does choose to provide is produced to a standard expected by its customer base. It’s CEO doesn’t call a press conference, make grandiose promises without regard to costs, then threaten to cut quality if higher prices aren’t immediately accepted. Why? Because competition would scoop up the customers.

That’s what the FREE PRESS does every day. State government, which gets its income from taxpayers like the FREE PRESS, needs to follow what the FREE PRESS does, and provide quality "product" at competitive "prices" to meet competition from Indiana to India. Like THE DETROIT FREE PRESS, Lansing can, and now clearly must, face and meet the challenge without alibis or blame.

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