[Photo by Amy Z. Quinn]
Animated image of flying pigs projected onto the Callowhill Street side of the Inquirer building at 400 N. Broad, last night. Inky Big Mahoff Brian P. Tierney commissioned the airborne pork 'toon as part of a full frontal nyah-nyah-nyah over the paper's recent modest circulation gain. The haters are still standing on tiptoe trying to get a peek at the End of Journalism As We Know It, but the Inky's daily circulation was up 0.6 percent, or about 2,136 copies, over the last year.
I hear the Boss and a posse of ad folks stopped in at Westy's for a drink while waiting for the sky to darken enough for the show to begin. The animation, done by Philly artist Ricardo Rivera at klip collective, was projected onto the side of the building from a Ryder truck in the parking lot across the way. The visual was actually pretty sweet in a trippy, Technicolor piggy kind of way, so for that we give props. Although I'm also told that Friday's paper will include a four-page pullout section written by an ad agency that details the story of flying pigs, including aerodynamics and the physics of porcine aviation, which sounds like it could be a bit much. But yeah, circulation's up!
OK, it's a teensy uptick, but for real: After years of the paper hemorrhaging readers, even a nudge in the right direction counts. And it's nice not just to have something positive to show off, but a guy who's goofy and prideful enough to want to do the showing off. Which explains why instead of being embarrassed beyond belief and wondering bitterly how much that nifty animation cost, I have this feeling like I want to grab dude in a headlock and give him some noogies.
UPDATE: I hold in my hand a copy of the insert. Like I said, the flying pigs were cute. This verges on tacky in a weirdly cool kind of way. I like how it makes fun of bloggers (including the obligatory not-so-subtle dig at Sweeney on the back page, where blogger "Lockfist Blowhard" predicts: "Thanks to my empire of instantly updated websites, no daily newspaper shall ever gain another reader") yet the entire thing reads like a Philebrity production, or at least one of DMac's phony ads. Also, on Page 3, a "man-on-the-street" style feature with eight headshots folks who "witnessed" the flying pigs proves the airborne pigs were apparently visible only to the Caucasian eye. Just sayin'.
I'm with you on the headlock part, but not so much on the noogies.
As a laid-off Inky worker noted: Tierney's next circulation-increase goal should be to exceed the margin of error.
Posted by: 0.6% | May 04, 2007 at 11:30 AM
Actually from my own perspective, the next goal should be restoring pay raises this year for all the employees whose salaries are frozen. My kid's feet get bigger every day.
Posted by: Citizen Mom | May 04, 2007 at 12:02 PM
Ummm, okay, circulation goes up a measley .6% and the paper puts out a junior varsity Onion section and some pigs on a wall? Way to convince the world that you are building a high class paper there, Brian.
Also, didn't the Daily News just start doing home delivery in the past year? And the delivery rate is its highest ever? Wow, who'da thunk it?
How about instead of focusing on insignificant gains of total readers you spend less time blowing money on Smerconish and Scottoline and actually send some reporters at the Inquirer to cover some stories, like, ya know, that event down in Blacksburg Virginia that was kind of a big deal?
Posted by: Jordan | May 06, 2007 at 10:51 PM