TOWER— City officials here are piqued over a false story that appeared on the front page of the Tower News last week claiming the city council had approved the Timberjay as its official newspaper again this year despite a quote from this newspaper that was five times more expensive.
The story, which was published without a byline under the headline: “Financially-strapped City takes bid 5 times higher than lowest,” was false, and clearly misrepresented the actual quotes that the city council reviewed. According to the Tower News, the Timberjay’s quote was $3.25 per column inch, while the Tower News bid just 65¢ per column inch.
“That not only was misleading, it appears intentionally so,” said Timberjay General Manager Jodi Summit, who prepared the Timberjay’s quote.
The city’s newspaper bid form includes a request for two separate prices— a price for “legals,” which would generally include publication of city minutes or ordinances, and a price for display advertising, which would include most public notices that the city routinely publishes. The city of Tower, given its size, is not legally required to publish its council minutes and hasn’t done so for decades, which means its publication of “legals” is quite limited.
In fact, according to an analysis by the Timberjay, the city published a total of 50 column inches of “legals” in 2020, compared to 288 column inches of display advertising.
What the Tower News failed to mention at any point in its story was that its quote for display advertising was $4.00 per column inch, or nearly 20 percent higher than the Timberjay’s quote of $3.25. Instead, the Tower News story compared their legal rate of 65¢ per column inch with the Timberjay’s display rate, a clearly misleading comparison. The Timberjay’s quote for legal publishing was actually 99¢ per column inch.
Based on the volume of display advertising undertaken by the city in 2020, the Tower News’ quote would have cost the city $1,152 to the Timberjay’s $936, providing a savings of about $216 with the Timberjay.
Based on the volume of the city’s legal publishing in 2020, the Timberjay’s bid of 99¢ for legals would cost the city $49.50. The Tower News’ bid would cost the city about $25, for a savings of approximately $24.50.
That would provide an overall savings to the city from the Timberjay’s quote of approximately $190.
The Timberjay emailed the Tower News editor for this story, asking who wrote the false story and whether the newspaper intends to issue a retraction. The Tower News did not respond.