Work for a newspaper and offend the "small businesses"? Better watch your job then.

[ck4829]

A Wisconsin newspaper editor demoted after writing a column that offended advertisers has started a legal campaign to get her job back, saying she is taking a stand for editorial independence.

Autumn Drussell filed a discrimination complaint Wednesday with the Equal Rights Division seeking to be reinstated as editor of the Stoughton Courier Hub. Drussell said she is standing up for journalism at a time when struggling small newspapers are especially susceptible to advertiser influence.

Months after being named editor, Drussell wrote in a July column she was shopping more at low-cost big box stores because of the economy. She suggested that local businesses needed to improve customer service, stop badmouthing their areas and appeal to frugal customers, advice offered at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon she attended.

The column upset some of the newspaper's advertisers in Stoughton, a city of 13,000 people, including hardware store owner Jim Gerber, who warned he would stop advertising until the economy improves.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_editor_demoted

[Kalyke]

1. Publishers have come from the ad side for too many years now.

They used to come from the editorial side, which made it easy to tell Jim the Hardware Guy to suck it.

[Newsjock]

2. And, for god's sake, never ever EVER offend the car dealers

http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=2149
From 1994

... Last June, the San Jose Mercury News became the latest newspaper to bow to pressure from dealers. A month earlier, the paper's Sunday business section included an 81-inch consumer guide to reading an invoice and negotiaing the best price on a new car, and local dealers were not happy.

The Mercury News is not alone. In the last few years, the Hartford Courant, Utah's St. George Spectrum, Alabama's Birmingham News and, more recently, the New Haven Register have all bowed to the wrath of dealers after running similar stories.

In San Jose, the response from dealers was swift: About 40 pulled their display advertising, costing the paper at least $1 million in revenue.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. One of our local fishwraps, a very well-respected one, made the mistake...

a few years ago of endorsing the wrong candidate for town council.

The local CofC objected, most display advertising was pulled, and there is no sign of them any more.

Freedom of the press sounds great until someone has to pay for that press.