David's Experience With Fake News

                   Thjis is what David told me:

              In the 1970s, leaving his teaching position, David started up a marketing consulting firm with David Concannon  (and for a short time, a third partner.)  Some investors bought a weekly newspaper, the Niagra Observer, putting in $20K to $30K each. They immediately ran into some difficulties.  An issue announced "this is the last issue," and the staff, editor, and publisher quit. A story arose that the sale of the newspaper was a pay-off to Republicans.

                In fact, the staff of the newspaper consisted of a 60-year-old man doing sports reporting, a 54-year-old man who was the photographer, and "twelve blondes." The newspaper ran from a house that had a sauna in the basement. The seller had provided a subscriber list of 12 thousand names; only 1,000 were active. Ads were run to make the newspaper look viable, but they were unpaid. 

            David and his colleague kept the newspaper running for a couple of months, but then a year-end story ran at the local ABC affiliate. A reporter said that a favorite story of the year was that the newspaper was delivered to David and his colleague as a payoff. "Wait a minute!" he protested. "I'm just a paid consultant with a contract!" However, he was ignored and no correction ever ran. He figures that because Nixon has just resigned and he was working for Republicans, he was guilty by association. And he has maintained a healthy skepticism of mainstream news media, let alone the outliers, ever since. 

    Concannon, by the way, had been a Pulitzer Prize nominee for the Buffalo Evening News. David found himself helping him financially and incurring a debt that took him two years to pay off. Eventually their partnership ended and Concannon relocated to Mexico, where he picked up the name "Diable Loco Rojo." Some years later he reappeared in San Francisco where he applied for bankruptcy and the debt to David was discharged by the bankruptcy court. David had never tried to collect, but was angered at his former friend's decision to be excused from paying the debt, without discussion.