The Cincinnati Beacon - What’s the big Ikea, er, idea?

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Tuesday, March 18, 2008

What’s the big Ikea, er, idea?

Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

Recently, Gannett blog (an independent journal that watches the behavior of Gannett owned newspapers, such as the Enquirer) posted this item about The Enquirer’s local coverage of Ikea. Until reading that blog post, I hadn’t noticed our local adpaper’s groveling to try and sell ads to Ikea.

Here is what Jim Hopkins, moderator of Gannett Blog, had to say:

Entire Cincy newsroom now fluent in Swedish

Or so I imagine, based on the Second Coming of Jesus treatment The Cincinnati Enquirer gave last week to the opening of discount Swedish home furnishings retailer Ikea. Take this big wet kiss in the opening day story: “A loyal following came to the frenzied daylong event out of love for Ikea.” (Yup: The paper actually published it.)

But that was just the Swedish meatball on top of the Enquirer’s don’t-miss-a-single-angle coverage. Consider this jaw-dropper: Ikea installs huge sign. And the lede didn’t disappoint: “A huge sign towering over I-75 in West Chester went up today for the new Ikea furniture store, slated to open March 12.”

This is very similar to the Creation Museum spread in nky.com, which we covered here.

When will the madness end? Is this what it means to live in a town with only one daily paper?

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Who Cares? says:
18 Mar 2008 at 07:20 pm | #

Why is this a) suprising or b) important? Sounds like a smart business move to me. I control the only daily newspaper in town and a new large box store has come to the area. I’ll do a few stories for free publicity in exchange for hopefully some decent ad revenue.

Are we really faulting the Enquirer for trying to run a successful business?

Nathan Wissman says:
18 Mar 2008 at 11:32 pm | #

The point is, who cares?, that journalism shouldn’t be about selling ad space. It should be about real hard news. It is dubious for the Enquire to report on every detail of the Enquier to report on the placement of a sign, while glossing over details about what is going on at city hall, or in Columbus.

Who Cares? says:
19 Mar 2008 at 05:07 pm | #

Nathan,

I don’t disupte that newspapers should feature hard hitting news. I recall just recently the Enquirer did a very detailed piece about immigration and how it affects this region. I think the Enquirer does a decent job of covering stories from state, local, and national levels.

I’m not familiar with the placement of the IKEA sign story, but I doubt it was Front Page news.

It just seems to me that with all the other issues that one could discuss it seems pointless to discuss the fact that a business is using tactics that are going to further drive their business. Would you blame a salesman for catering to a client by taking them on a night on the town?

I’m sure this will bring upon arguments about the ethics of journalism, but realistically, the Enquirer is a business that is designed to make money. Selling ads is a major revenue stream and IKEA could be a major ad buyer. I call it smart business.

Ikia says:
20 Mar 2008 at 03:59 am | #

Ikia is great but i think the the Enquirer hyped it a bit too much.