DIRTY FINGERS

posted by James Reel

My Arizona Public Media colleague Robert Rappaport, one of the few people I know who still dirties his hands with newspapers instead of just browsing news Web sites, has an amusing blog entry showing how desperate the Arizona Daily Star is to get its product into the hands of people like Robert. But aren’t house ads that promote the newspaper merely preaching to the converted?

Meanwhile, National Public Radio personnel will no longer sully their fingers with other news organizations’ ink. Jim Romanesko got his hands on this memo from NPR’s director of morning programming and posted it at Poynter Online:

From: Ellen McDonnell To: ME list; Davar Ardalan; Jenni Bergal Sent: Thu Mar 12 15:48:24 2009 Subject: saving money As of April 1 NPR is cancelling all newspaper subscriptions. We are making some arrangments to get the Wall Street Journal either on line or hard copy. You have until tomorrow to appeal this if there is a solid reason why you should be exempt. This is a cost saving measure company wide.