It's extremely difficult to start a new business today. But what made this one close to impossible to succeed was politics. It was all those politicos that were driven to ensure that the Tribune, competing against the established newspaper in town whose editor is one of the "boys," would not get any traction. They were livid that another newspaper would actually report on the facts and on the truth and conducted the biggest smear campaign on a blog and on Facebook in this city's history. Because of the unfairness of their actions, I am now inspired, more than ever, to continue this blog and report the other side of the story. Hopefully, Margaret Menge will be able to write a Business Plan that will succeed and this newspaper will re-open at some time in the future. One thing for sure, the Tribune sure beat having to read the lies and distortions and the made-up "facts" that we have been reading for years.
Dear Readers of The Lake Worth Tribune:
I want to thank those of you who have told me over these last few months how much you enjoy the paper, and to let you know, with regret, that I could not make it work as a business, and so have to close up shop.
I began with the the idea, the conviction, that residents of Lake Worth needed more information about their community -- that they were hungry for it, and that they deserved it as citizens and taxpayers.
I tried every week to give you the information that I thought you would
want to know, and to present it in a way that was highly readable.
I started with about $15,000 in savings, and took out a loan for $15,000. My father bought $600 worth of stock in the corporation and I assigned stock to an old friend from New York who once gave me $1000 when I was working to start a paper in Key West.
I had a plan. That plan showed us selling enough advertising to cover the expense of printing and distributing a newspaper every week, and a little more. Unfortunately, I faced a number of obstacles. Many of them I expected. I knew going in, for example, what happens when you start publishing a spirited newspaper that shines a light on some things that some people would like to keep hidden. The bullets fly. This is a very good sign and I was cheered by it.
But I didn't expect a sitting city commissioner to go to our downtown businesses and tell them not to advertise in the Tribune. And I didn't expect people to go up and down Dixie Hwy. stealing stacks of newspapers after the chair of a city board encouraged them to do it.
I'm sad for Lake Worth that we have these sorts of people here. This is a wonderful town, in so many ways, and we have so many intelligent and kind people living here.
Speaking of...I had lots of help with the paper. A number of friends helped in a number of ways. I won't soon forget it.
I'm sorry I couldn't keep it going. Lake Worth really does deserve a good newspaper. It's a heck of a town.
Margaret Menge, Editor and Publisher
The Lake Worth Tribune
I started with about $15,000 in savings, and took out a loan for $15,000. My father bought $600 worth of stock in the corporation and I assigned stock to an old friend from New York who once gave me $1000 when I was working to start a paper in Key West.
I had a plan. That plan showed us selling enough advertising to cover the expense of printing and distributing a newspaper every week, and a little more. Unfortunately, I faced a number of obstacles. Many of them I expected. I knew going in, for example, what happens when you start publishing a spirited newspaper that shines a light on some things that some people would like to keep hidden. The bullets fly. This is a very good sign and I was cheered by it.
But I didn't expect a sitting city commissioner to go to our downtown businesses and tell them not to advertise in the Tribune. And I didn't expect people to go up and down Dixie Hwy. stealing stacks of newspapers after the chair of a city board encouraged them to do it.
I'm sad for Lake Worth that we have these sorts of people here. This is a wonderful town, in so many ways, and we have so many intelligent and kind people living here.
Speaking of...I had lots of help with the paper. A number of friends helped in a number of ways. I won't soon forget it.
I'm sorry I couldn't keep it going. Lake Worth really does deserve a good newspaper. It's a heck of a town.
Margaret Menge, Editor and Publisher
The Lake Worth Tribune
11 comments:
Oh no.
Mark Parrilla says that he lined his bird cage with the nespaper that was run out of business and happy it's out of business. Why is that Mr. Parrilla? Someone such as yourself who believes in freedom of speech and cost someone her job for saying the N word in an empty room, How sick are you anyway? You talk about religion on Facebook and make people believe you are a nice guy. copying Wes(s), when in fact you are pathetic and you need Gods' love.
We trust that Margaret will align herself with supporters and a business manager to revive her paper in the coming season.
Her in depth reporting on the alliance between former un-elected Commissioner Szerdi led to his overwhelming defeat and disrobed the 3 remaining mis-representative occupants of our Commission seats.
Thank you Margaret for the great service you have done for the majority of Lake Worth citizens who are here because it is a low rise City and who want the beach to remain as it is- what the citizens created after years of planning.
Margaret, thank you so much for your great efforts and one heck of a paper. The residents of Lake Worth got a taste of what a newspaper should be , and we'll all sure miss the Tribune. Hope you can get started back in the not so distant future! Katie Mcgiveron
The free market has spoken. Assuming that the paper was never intentionally meant to be short lived to serve a purpose as it was widely suspected, then it shows that there is no support for this type of writing. A commenter above was discussing overwhelming defeat. Well from a business standpoint this would be an overwhelming and crushing failure.
I don't care much for taking sides, but rather plain old facts. As an everyday person my take on the Tribune is that it was as selective as it could be and clearly left out many pertinent facts in the effort to frame situations and people in certain ways, which were clearly politically motivated. I know this because I was there and observed many of these situations and saw the effort to cherry pick details and facts that were included and what was left out. Facts that if included would have had led to a totally different tone to the article. In the multiple cases I have first hand knowledge of, it was extremely clear what was going on. I detected it by the second edition.
Go ahead and attack away on this post, but the analysis is clear. Beyond that part, the every day citizens who don't have that same knowledge obviously just didn't care for the paper even being unaware of the way the stories were reported.
I also don't like the fact that I was excluded from getting the free home delivery because I live in the wrong part of town. Why was everyone outside of College Park and the few streets on the east excluded?
It is sad to see the excuse making for the failure and blaming it on some people. Bad business, bad plan, bad executive, poor quality. That is why it failed. You give too much power to people who don't have it, and admit to being weak that they are in control of your future and you are not in control. You will never succeed thinking like that.
Hopefully you find your successful calling in the future and achieve happiness.
Oh, you were excluded from a free paper? Why didn't you subscribe like I did?
The "free" was to market it in the beginning and get it started. The fact that it was sabotaged made it impossible to survive especially on a limited budget.
Everyone I know liked the paper and liked it because it was not political but factual.
Margaret's calling is writing this newspaper...hopefully it will come back in the Winter.
Oh Lynn come on Now, We all know that it will be back for the Next Election.
9:50pm--yeah, sure--Margaret Menge likes getting beaten to a pulp by you people. We are all masochists and love the abuse and our product getting trashed, stolen and our name besmirched by bullies.
Our product?
Yeah, our product.
She had a newspaper.
I have a blog.
We both have our opinions.
We both have our reputations, articles supported by fact.
Which is branding--
ALL the above are PRODUCTS in a sense.
The free market is not Andy Amoroso stealing the Tribune from Publix and threatening businesses with code attacks if they carry the Tribune. The free market is not people like Marshall Pass and Nadine Burns trying to curry favor with city hall by stealing the Tribune.The free market is not the chicken Shit businesses of Lake Worth who bowed to scare tactics instead of telling the toadies to go to hell. These businesses should have gone public with the threats against them. I will now STOP supporting the chicken shit businesses of Lake Worth. It's easier to go to the big box malls anyway.
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