jihad on the trib

i decided to stay on with darren and cassie at the doniphan and blue hill papers. had myself real worked up about it the day i had to decide and literally could have put heads on one and tails on the another and been satisfied with the result of a coin flip. but now i'm extremely glad i made this decision.

reasons:
-they're just plain horrible to darren and cassie. stubborn over a portion of the contract, won't talk to them face to face, demand that certain things should be their's. plus, they brought back people who hate darren and cassie (for really no good reason.)
-they're horrible to erica. so she quit. they made her cry so she walked out the first day on the job. very good employee relations.
-i think it will be clear soon how much better our product was with a staff of 3 than their's will be with a staff of a dozen.

bygones be bygones. it is kind of weird not having a clay county news association anymore, though. there's been a few times already where i've been like "oh, i should take a picture of that.' or 'that'd be nice to follow up on.' new prospects make it much better.

additional reasons why this was the best decision:
-opportunity for expansion. this one's loaded. first, both are 8 page papers. obviously, advertising determines number of pages, but community/school expansion is looking good. the hastings tribune, a daily in 25,000 pop. city about 12 mi. south of doniphan, 35 mi. west of sutton, has been creeping into out territory. this encroaching will not be tolerated.
-over a few beers following the completion of our final CCN issue, darren and i discussed ways to improve the doniphan and blue hill papers. video and an increased internal focus on our main communities is priority number one (pay attention hastings tribune [from here on out referred to as 'the trib'] you might learn something.) the trib, despite having the entire hastings community/schools/college to itself, sees it beneficial to encroach into our communities rather than focus on its own.
**trib background - on any given day, the trib's front page will have half or more AP content. they cover enough hastings to get by. any other stories are stolen from us and summarized, as confirmed by goofy reporter tony, who said he gets most of his ideas from reading our paper. tip: find news in your own town. OR ELSE WE WILL.. (see next point)**
-while you're busy dicking around in our small communities, stealing our stories, we'll be quietly, yet aggressively, doing what you are not. there are towns/schools that have the trib as their legal newspaper that claim to cover the communities, but will really only show their face during a festival, big game or some other huge event. they're lucky to get a picture or mention twice a month. they show up just enough to keep people's interest or, as they did a few weeks ago, will advertise on our town's flashing sign for a free lunch in the park, and host said event to sway our readership. but good luck getting mentioned more than once or twice a month. soo...

jihad on the trib!

war strategy available as the conflict develops..