Saturday, February 09, 2013

Chain newspaper crazy train going off the rails.

Kudos to Dan Christensen.

First the cub reporter regularly uses his Twitter feed (under the chain newspaper's banner, and presumably with its permission) to lash out at small, independent local businesses.

Now the chain newspaper has published a column, evidently unavailable on  line, written by a woman urging big box flower arrangement shopping. Meanwhile the pop-up publisher of the year wanders off to post Bible proverbs, assigning a column slot to his pastor.

As we seek discernible signs of coherent chain newspaper management amid the escalating squalor, here's the florist's cogent point.

READER JEERS

... To Darlene Hilsenback for her column in last Saturday’s paper telling people to shop the big chain stores instead of their local florist on Valentine’s Day. Study after study shows money spent with small locally owned and operated shops benefits the local economy. With all the work groups and businesses do to try to get this out when someone encourages people to bypass the local florists and shop the chain stores for a better deal, we tend to get very upset. If you as consumers will take the time to shop your local florists I think you might be pleasantly surprised. Most of your local shops will compete not only in price, but also in service. It was stated in her column that the chain stores have less overhead, but in reality the small shops do not have the buying power that the big chain stores have. We can’t lose money on our flowers only to make it up on other products while you are in the stores, and still we try to stay competitive on our prices and services. I encourage everyone to BUY LOCAL, shop your local florists this year for Valentine’s Day, you and the person you are buying for will not be disappointed.

— Dan Christensen, co-owner, Affairs of the Heart Florist in Jeffersonville

A locally owned and operated florist since 1991

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