Exactly two years ago, plus or minus a leap day, we posted the now classic item appended at the end of THIS post. It was early in the history of this media outlet, and we had to find our amusement where we could.
In view of current events, we thought you might want to refresh yourself on this watershed item from our on-line archives. (BTW, the Ostrich on-line archives span all of two weeks; ours span our entire existence.)
As loyal readers know, we have frequently reported on the inability of The Ostrich to pay its fair share in property taxes on a timely basis like the rest of us do. And we’ve juxtaposed it with their editorial predilection for telling local taxpayers to stop the whining and pay whatever it takes in increased taxes to ‘support the community and promote our school excellence.’
As it turns out, the tax delinquencies of said Ostrich have now risen to a higher degree of public visibility. We have friends to thank for tipping us to the latest events, and as soon as we have T-Shirts made with The Other Side logo, they’ll get theirs free.
The public visibility to which we refer is rising to the level of an agenda item at the upcoming Town Council meeting on Monday, March 5th. The agenda packet for the meeting can be found here: http://www.brunswickme.org/council/agendas/packets/2012Packets/packet030512.pdf
You’ll have to scroll through the document, but when you do, you’ll find a complete accounting of the amounts the publishing firm owes the town. Even more enlightening, you’ll find a sequence of emails between town officials and the publisher, and they are, to say the least, both revealing and troubling.
You can judge for yourselves whether The Ostrich has a viable future. They are clearly in extremis. We’ll just say we’re glad they don’t have a cash advance of $100 or so from us. That would have been as good an investment as buying into Kestrel Aircraft Brunswick operations.
Lastly, we have to thank another friend for suggesting that perhaps the owners of The Ostrich should contact S. Donald Sussman-Pingree to plead for a cash bailout.
He’s apparently long on cash and highly motivated to invest in media outlets, though we can’t fathom why he would do so.
If you have any hunches on why he would, please let us know, and we’ll follow up.
Local newspaper adopts new name, image
According to unconfirmed reports, the owners & publishers of Brunswick’s daily newspaper have announced that the publication is putting a new face on the operation. Determined to stem a precipitous circulation decline, the paper’s leadership has been searching for an identity that would breath new life into its pages, and be more consistent with its editorial policies, journalistic rigor, and the refined sensibilities of the region.
“We felt it was important to get the best ideas possible in this endeavor,” the paper’s owner allegedly said, “so we enlisted the help of the noted media consulting firm Bailey, Balderdash and Malarkey, who’ve recently been helping ABC News and the New York Times with their images.”
The locals were advised to connect with the character of the community, and Bowdoin College is clearly a cultural pillar of the town. Impressed by the catchiness of the college newspaper’s name – ‘The Bowdoin Orient’ – the publisher asked the consultants to come up with something similarly appealing and symbolic, and after months of rigorous study, they struck pay dirt.
Henceforth, the broadsheet will be known as ‘The Brunswick Ostrich,’ and the masthead will read:
The Brunswick Ostrich
Serving the willfully uninformed since 1967
In keeping with the theme, the editorial board adopted the mascot shown below:
Editors claim to be excited about the new identity, and believe it will “tie all the loose ends together,” a willfully un-named source close to them said. “Even the photographers feel a new sense of dedication,” the source said, “and to prove it, they offered this shot of the editors digging in to a crucial story,” presumably about the planned beach resort on the redeveloped Brunswick Naval Air Station.
Calls to Ostrich offices were not returned by post time, so this reporter cannot confirm or deny whether “feathers will be flying” due to any possible staff realignments.
And questions about whether the beach resort is simply a Potemkin Village do-over for Oxford Aviation and renowned barrister F. Lee Bailey will go unanswered.
Which, come to think of it, is just the way the editors have always liked things.
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