The New York Times has a cool story today about the TriCityNews, a weekly newspaper out of Monmouth County, N.J. Apparently, the newspaper and it's staff of 3.5 employees are prospering because they aggressively IGNORE the Web.
Their website is very minimal, mostly a little text about the paper's mission and ad rates, but nothing more (check it out here).
"I don’t understand how putting content on the Web would do anything but help destroy our paper. Why should we give our readers any incentive whatsoever to not look at our content along with our advertisements, a large number of which are beautiful and cheap full-page ads?”
Chris Christie, the former U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, is continuing his "let's wait and see" approach about running against Jon Corzine for Governor in 2009.
Despite having little experience as a criminal prosecutor when George W. Bush appointed him in 2002, Christie has been a political corruption buster, amassing 130 political corruption convictions without a single acquittal.
But, in the last year, he received a blemish on his record when he handed his one-time boss, former U.S. Attorney John Ashcroft, a contract worth between $27 million and $52 million to monitor a medical device company for 18 months. Democrats challenged the no-bid deal, which lead to new Justice Department guidelines on how federal monitors are selected.
Will it come back and bite him? Who knows. We'll see if Steve Lonegan puts together a commercial with money changing hands, as Ashcroft sings in the background, "Let the eagles soar..."
