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Bill Yemma of Littleton writes:

Puh-leeze stop pasting those trashy 3” X 3” advertisements on the front page of the paper. I don’t appreciate you making my day any more complicated than it already is going to be, especially at 5:30 am. Three times this past week, I have inadvertently torn the front page peeling off this undignified piece of junk while trying, as you newspaper people like to think of it, “to get to the truth", and see what is behind it. Usually it’s the day and date, which I value a lot because I know you are still capable of getting this correct every day. My guess is that 99% of these stick-ons go right to the trash can unread. Lately though, if I pry mine off successfully, I have been re-pasting it over Mike Littwin’s picture. Why can’t you just put it there every day? As I write this, one of your Senior Idiots in Advertising is at the golf course, thinking he hit the mother lode, oblivious to how much he has offended your customers, and gloating about his upcoming bonus. Little does he know that when Big John Temple gets this note, Mr. Genius’ new job will be in Podunk, Colorado, where he will live out the remainder of his days reporting on school board meetings, the Kiwanis Club Pancake Breakfast, and girls softball tournaments. Big John is a smart man and he knows that it’s things like stick-on ads, along with your daily avalanche of junk mail, text messaging teenage drivers, and cell phones ringing during the Sunday sermon that are a common-cause theme in the daily stories we read about, where a heretofore law-abiding suburbanite loses his mind and commits some horrible act, ending up on death row or in the psycho ward. Mr. Genius, do you and your advertising clients want this on your collective conscience? By the way, have you checked with Greenpeace and the Sierra Club to see what they say about the carbon footprint of these stick-ons, and are you ready for their upcoming lawsuit?
Many moons ago, I was a morning paperboy for the Austin American-Statesman.
Every month, while in junior & senior high school, I was told by my route manager that the paper, especially the front page, was sacred to both the newspaperman and the customers. “Sack ‘em, wax ‘em, porch ‘em . keep ‘em dry!!!", he would admonish me. Man, I didn’t do all of that work forty years ago to see it fall apart like this. Brothers and sisters at the Denver Newspaper Agency, you are flirting with danger here, sliding down the path of self destruction and shortening the precious amount of time left until you are fully obsolete. That would be sad, especially for the thousands of people along the Front Range who rely on your product to house train their puppies.

This letter has not been edited.

READER COMMENTS

Bill, do you want to make up the lost advertising revenue those annoying little squares provide to the paper if they grant your request?

I do not find the stickies any more obnoxious than the glossy circulars that are included with my paper, the full page furniture store ads inside my paper, or the animated ads on the website. Advertising is part of a newspaper's business model. It's best just to ignore the ads the same way I ignore the sports, spotlight, and classified sections of the paper.

I'm sick of people spelling please as "Puh-leeze". Please provide your address, Mr. Yemma, and I will place a sticky note on your morning paper with the correct spelling.

(What a penatrating and inciteful letter to the editor)

Don't worry Bill-- like most annoying marketing gimmicks, this one will disappear soon enough as soon as people realize the R.O.I. isn't worth the additional production costs.

However, saying "Brothers and sisters at the Denver Newspaper Agency, you are flirting with danger here, sliding down the path of self destruction" sounds a little over-dramatic and apocalyptic, don't you think? A lot of bad karma over a sticky note!

Here's an idea..... less coffee at 5:30am.

Bill,
Unlike the previous comments, I found your letter to be both humorous and inciteful. Some people take themselves way too seriously I guess..

Bill, there's a simple solution to stopping the flow of trash into your door from the RMN - CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION!

I did about 10 years ago because I got sick of living in piled up newspaper trash. I felt like I was an involuntary worker in a printing plant. Aside from the ads, the actual useful content of the newspaper would fit into an ordinary business sized envelope.

And with the Internet, instead of reading stories from 3 days ago, you can get news within minutes of it happening! AND, you don't have to put up with endless tripe about the Broncos and pretentious Cherry Creek poseur socialites! And you can still go online and read the yapping of Redneck Wingnut Bushies in the editorial section, and actually respond to it [for the little that's worth...]

So, in sum: Cancel your subscription and stop the 70 pounds or so a week of waste paper!

I must agree with Erik,I do not think I would be quite so emphatic about it; but I do agree with him.

J: it is so funny when people try to correct other people's mistakes while making their own. IT ISN'T penAtrating. It is penEtrating.

yeesh!

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