Everything you thought was right was wrong today

Rick Edmonds at Poynter has a bang-up piece of reporting on the circulation scandals. Using only on-the-record, publicly available data, he weaves together an unsurprising thesis that bolsters the argument that it's time for change (emphasis mine):

Lately the party line in the industry is that the worst of the scandal part is behind us. Industry leaders say the tally of recent losses, while admittedly bad, is not quite as bad as some had predicted. Business is getting back to normal, they say.

Not so fast, we are here to tell you. We stumbled serendipitously on a set of facts suggesting that the impact to date is actually 50 percent worse than we and others who track the industry had thought.

Of course we think the business analysis of the circ scandals is like arguing the championship game's outcome based upon the impact of the bad call in the semifinals.

Again, I beat you o'er the head with my favorite Ed Wasserman quote:

Still, there is an absurdity to the whole scam. Counting copies is a dopey way to gauge impact.

That's a big part of why we're here. Because everyone else is trying to fix a broken game. You can not stop the erosion of paid print newspaper circulation. Yet, that's the fuel that's driving the whole train.

One of the slides in our PowerPoint preso is about how much harder it is to solve the intrinsic problem than it is to create a model where those problems don't exist. (Bonus points to anyone who can find an apt replacement for our old Wal-Mart/Sears analogy.)

I hope think that's what we've done, conceptually.

(Hedline in tribute to the soon-to-be-late, great Slobberbone.)