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About newspaper advertising
Free Space
Available
- Contrary to what most people think, newspapers operate on
advertising – not news. With the possible exception of large
newspapers like the
Houston
Chronicle, the size (number of pages) of a newspaper
issue is determined by the amount of advertising available for
that issue. To insure that each issue will be profitable,
newspapers use a specific advertising-to-page calculation to
determine the size of the issue, and advertisements are set up
on the pages first. The remaining space becomes Free Space
Available to be used at the total discretion of the editor
for news, information, and columns.
What is
“news” and what isn’t?
This is a difficult line to draw in regard to community - oriented
newspapers - especially when many items submitted as “news” are
actually advertising items that would require payment for
publication in larger newspapers. Local editors are extremely
generous in expanding the definition of “news” to include many
non-news articles (such as those that give details of upcoming
profit-making events and/or follow-up thank you articles about
profit-making events, Back-to-School information, etc.) This
loss of advertising space and income is a community service
provided by those newspapers when possible, but there is a limit
to what newspapers can print for free if they want to stay in
business.
So,
1) support our
local papers and keep those “good cause” items short and to the
point - edit them to fit into community announcement sections
where possible. (If you are in doubt about whether the
information you need published will fall into the news or
advertising category, contact WISD PI or call the editors of the
newspapers you plan to use.)
2) be prepared to pay for announcements or information whose
publication is required by government entities
3) do not request or expect the free publication of foreign
language translations
4) take the time to stop by local newspaper offices and thank
them for the free space they regularly donate to WISD schools
Quality is
important!
Every item that
appears in any publication is a reflection of Waller ISD, so
submit only legible, well-written, grammatically correct text.
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