We were amused and somewhat puzzled the other day to see an advertisement in the daily paper extolling local business and the virtues of buying local.
We were amused, mainly because the Observer is a local business while theirs is not, being a wholly-owned subsidiary of a regional media conglomerate group with corporate headquarters in Richmond, Va.
We were puzzled because we’d talked about running an ad with them, paying them to say pretty much what they said for free.
Why run the ad?
They propose to run a special advertising insert in their paper featuring local businesses and making money from it.
We propose you send those ad dollars here, to support another locally owned business like yourself.
There are a few things the daily paper seems to do well, and convincing folks they are a ‘community’ paper seems to be one of them.
While they exist in our community, they seem to go out of their way time and time again to prove themselves not a part of our community, sometimes lacking sensitivity and good judgment in what they consider to be “news.”
A local paper should primarily feature local citizens on and in its pages, but our daily paper seems to be stocked with photos from AP sources.
This paper was founded by its all local owners to be a source of local news, something we weren’t seeing at the time from the daily paper.
Years later, the daily seems to do a more adequate job of covering local events, and there are now three local papers (counting our sister paper The Auburn Villager) to help give folks the news.
If you truly want to support local businesses, take a look at the ads that adorn our pages here.
A large majority of them are locally owned and operated businesses, manned by your friends, neighbors and other folks you know.
As much as we enjoy hearing y’all tell us you enjoy reading our paper, please do us the favor of thanking our advertisers for supporting our paper.
Tell them you like seeing all local news, and that you’re thankful they help to support it.
Do business with folks who do business with us.
And, if you frequent a place that doesn’t advertise with us, tell them about our paper. Take them a few copies; we’ll gladly give you some.
Tell them the Opelika Observer is the paper for locals by locals.
We firmly agree with the daily paper that all the folks around here should certainly buy local.
We just want them to take the time to remember what the word “local” really means.