A story at Flaglerlive.com reports Redding described the arrangement—highly unusual in news-gathering operations, and forbidden, for ethical and journalistic reasons, in many that maintain a strict separation between news-gathering on one side and advertising and marketing on the other—as an “incentive,” rather than a requirement: no expectations were set. But staffers have had no raises in four years and were promised none this year.
Redding offered up his human resources director, Patty Morris, as an example of what others could do: Morris, he said, netted about 200 new subscriptions through her church.
As with most newspapers, the News-Journal’s circulation has been plummeting since the middle of the past decade, though at a faster pace than the industry average, and with a particularly pronounced dive after Halifax Media, Redding’s group of three investors, took over the paper last year. The paper lost 10 percent of its circulation between April and September 2010, compared with the same period the previous year. Average weekday circulation fell below 64,000, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation. Sunday circulation fell 10 percent, too.
On some weekdays, advertising content in the paper was falling to around 25 percent, compared with 40 percent in healthier times. More recently the newspaper has been attempting to swell its circulation by re-starting its Newspaper in Education program, which entails the distribution of reams of newspapers to schools.
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