Changes at the Tribune are Seriously Affecting Non Profits and Event Planners

Every day I am greeted with over 30 public relations announcements from everywhere. Today, Macy's told me about a Fashion Show at their Clearwater store. Some NY PR firm told about a new gum that has more caffeine than a cup of coffee. Three local non-profit groups have told me about their upcoming events.

If you have been watching the transition in the content and appearance of the Tampa Tribune, it has become pretty clear that they are shrinking. And the emphasis is clearly moving them towards a professional sports dominated paper. Even during the recent financial crisis, the Rays and the Bucs frequently dominated their front page.

What that means to you is that media coverage of your local events is declining. Getting advance publicity is getting tougher. Tampa is fortunate to have a lot of great volunteers reaching into their available time and into their wallets to do some great things, but these changes in media coverage are making your efforts tougher to accomplish.

What this means to us is that we are now receiving more and more requests for our promotional efforts. We do our best, but sometimes it is just impossible to promote and cover all the events taking place in this large city. Especially if we do not receive the amount of advertising support that would help us to accomplish this. I have covered as many as 10 events in one day.

Our newspaper, Tampa's Davis Islands Community News is doing well. We now are printing 19,000 each month. Traffic to our websites - TampaGold.com, SOHOTampa.com and others continue to grow.

We want to do even more to talk about and promote your business and non-profit groups, events, and efforts. But we are being flooded with public relations requests, that want our services, they are being paid, but we are not. (We just got one about "making it easier to replace windows")

You have probably watched our efforts for sometime. Your thoughts and comments are very important to us.
How do you think we can take the next step to provide even more benefits for your community efforts ? Please email bill@tampagold.com with your ideas.