Oklahoma Newspaper Fights 'Free' Advertising

By Darren Brown, News9.com

WEATHERFORD, Oklahoma -- Advertising is the lifeblood for almost any small town newspaper.  Bean suppers, rotary clubs and community calendars may take up space, but it's the ads that make it happen.

The Weatherford Daily News has been around for more than 100 years.  It's been through several name changes, but has survived mainly because of it's strong financial support from the community. 

So when out-of-town companies began bombarding the WDN with e-mails soliciting new products and wanting free advertising, Phillip Reid, the Daily's publisher, knew he had to take action.

"I don't know how other people run their media businesses," said Reid.  "Maybe a magazine has a story about a new brand of flavored vodka, and they run that for free, but I doubt it."

So he came up with a simple but effective way to respond to the e-mails.  They all get the same canned response. 

"It says 'Thank you for your press release, your product sounds interesting, please send us a sample for consideration in our publications,'" said Reid.  "We do not run articles about products without having tested them ourselves."

Now, shipments of free merchandise come almost daily, according to Reid. 

Coffemakers, water bottles, candy, alarm clocks and even home improvement products now fill a small table at the Weatherford Daily News offices.   

Reid says his intent was never to see how much free stuff he could get, but to get companies to realize that newspapers, no matter how small, are not free advertising.

"They don't get it, they don't understand," Reid said.  "This is an attempt that we hope fails."

Reid plans on continuing his e-mails as long as he continues to receive the requests.  He's hopeful that someday soon those e-mails will change into actual advertising.