• by John Gaffney , March 17, 2003

Read All Over: Here’s why you read newspapers, and here’s why the oldest advertising format still has its place in today’s ultraspeed world. On Sunday, two complex stories broke. If media consumers relied only on cable news and the Internet, they wouldn’t have had the right perspective on the news. The first was the mysterious flu bug that has prompted even the Center for Disease Control to get scared. All the newspapers I read did a great job of laying out the cases so far and the potential threat in the future. The second was, of course, Iraq. The countdown from hell continued everywhere on TV. But if you really wanted to know the geopolitical core issues, consumers needed newspapers. This week will not be about the “scaredy-cats” from France and Turkey. I think you needed a reliable newspaper to know that China and Russia are the real potential problems we face over going to war. Media consumers need to open the broadsheets. And the newspapers themselves have no better time than right now to show what they’re made of.

Good Guys Finish Last Dept.: I thought Kmart marketing VP Steve Feuling did an amazing job with a broken down brand. Like anybody who works at Kmart, his job security was tenuous, I guess, and he was let go last week. But after interviewing him on a couple of occasions, I was impressed by the fact that he had a plan to brand and increase sales for Kmart, regardless of the Chapter 11 garbage his company dealt with. He was the one who understood that Kmart needed a differentiation point for advertising in a Wal-Mart world. And he did it.

Parting Shot:If MSNBC gave right wing shock-jock Michael Savage any kind of production values for his new show, maybe it would have a shot. Right now it looks like Wayne’s World with an old dude. Not only is it awful to watch, but Savage should take a cue from other conservative instigators and become more informed on matters he will discuss. He is unprepared at best. Attitude and intimidation will only get you as far as Jesse Ventura.