Dave Wood

When my wife told me that Pierce County Health Department employees had picked “branding” as one of their top priorities for the next two years, I felt very nervous for all the patients who were about to be maimed by people they thought were there to relieve them of pain. “No, silly,” she corrected. “They want to find better ways to sell their product, like creating a better advertising image.” A better brand.”

Oh. That’s not such a novel idea. I’ve watched the “branding” business of newspapers for decades without knowing what I was doing!

Of course, main publications rely on old favorites for their big and bold-faced banners like this paper, the Journal, or the Post, or the Express or the Monitor or Gazetteer. But others depart from these, when problems arise as newspaper readership changes. One of my favorites in the Upper Midwest, THE ADVANCE STANDARD AND WELCOME TIMES. As you might suspect there’s hardly room for this one on the banner. So why did they name it?  Because it was a merger of the weeklies in Advance Minnesota, and its neighbor Welcome!

These days, when the trend toward merger is everywhere, few publishers can go the Advance and Welcome route. Like my birthplace, Trempealeau County, where some smart young folks bought out every paper in the county, then closed down all but one. Did they call it

THEWHITEHALLTIMESANDARCADIANEWSLELADERANDINDEPENDENCE  NEWS-WAVEANDBLAIRPRESSANDGALESVILLEREPUBLICAN?

Of course not. They gave up and called it the Trempealeau County Times.

Other publishers found numerous ways to give their papers a place in the sun, sometimes with humor. In tiny North Baltimore, Ohio, birthplace of actresses Lillian and Dorothy Gish, the editor, depressed over the fact that the great Ohio oil boom had passed them by, named his newspaper THE UNIQUE DERRICK, because only one oil derrick was constructed and when it turned up dry, the prospectors moved on to Findlay (home of Marathon Oil). “Unique.” Get it?  Only one.

And then there’s the modesty of New Orleans journalists. Modesty in New Orleans? You bet. Haven’t you heard of the New Orleans TIMES- PICAYUNE? Noah Webster defines “picayune” as of “little value or account.” No wonder it’s published only three times a week these days.

Over the years other mergers have run into trouble. For instance, in olden times Red Wing, Minn., had three newspapers. The Republican, right leaning; The Eagle, middle leaning; and the leftist Farmer-Labor, so small and insignificant that I can’t find its name anywhere. But I do know about its fiery editor. This is a verbatim opinion piece he published one Wednesday in a fit of rage:

“If one removed the brain out of the editor of the Republican and removed the brain of the editor of the Eagle, mashed the two into a ball and inserted the ball into the bladder of a mosquito, it would rattle around like a bean in a boxcar.”

Sometime banners of newspapers are hoisted on their own petard, if I may use a cliché. (Of course I can. That’s what journalists do! Why do you think we always call popes pontiffs?)

When I was a young whippersnapper attending Bowling Green State University, we all read the TOLEDO BLADE, whose liberal editorials were ever cutting. As for Bowling Green’s little SENTINTEL TRIBUNE, it was known by all grad students as THE SENTIMENTAL TROMBONE. Not to be outdone, most Red River Valley Farmer Laborites call the FARGO FORUM, whose banner is flanked by roman columns, THE FARGO FOOL’EM.

Oh, I forgot about pen names. Radical Revolutionary War essayist Philip Freneau signed his pieces O.S.M., which he said stood for “One of the Swinish Multitude.” Samuel Clemens hid behind “Mark Twain” for years. O. Henry’s real name was William Sidney Porter. And lest we forget the popular Pioneer Press gossip columnist of the past, Oliver Towne. I figured that was a pretty classy name. Then, when I met him, he was introduced as “Gareth.” Someone had to explain to me that Oliver Towne meant that Gareth was “All Over Town.”

Dave would like to hear from you: 715-441-2081.