The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
Crime time
: Again and again, I’ve seen people try to make a publishing franchise out of crime. It last worked when my grandmother read true confessions magazines (before tabloid and reality TV). When I was at Time Inc., they tried, incredibly, to create a crime magazine. Didn’t fly. And now I follow this link to a local franchised crime newspaper. Don’t get it. What a fun weekly read: murder, mayhem, arson, rape, theft, robbery. Oh, boy, can’t wait for the next issue!
Yeah, I don’t get it either, but try telling that to my wife. She loves the stuff. I often worry that I’m going to wake up dead one day… just so she can try out the techniques she learned on the Discovery channel for getting rid of a body. Let me tell you, it’s a little disturbing to watch a murder mystery with her yelling at the fools on screen for not dumping the body in water.
‘murder, mayhem, arson…’ sounds like the 11 o’clock local news to me.
Love the disclaimer on their site:
“Snitch is not currently registered to sell franchises in California, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington or Wisconsin. ”
Could be shortened to read:
“Snitch is not currently registered to sell franchises in states which regulate this sort of thing at all.”
I don’t look down my nose at the crime-news concept, though… I enjoy Smoking Gun and Gangland News entirely too much.
As a mystery novelist, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about here. Didn’t you read Police Gazette when you were a kid? Way cool.
If you want a free subscription to the Louisville edition, Jeff, I’ll be more than happy to provide you one.
Barry:
You obviously know nothing about the franchise business. There are 36 states which have no state level fracnhise registration process and 14 that do. We just began national advertising of our franchise opportunity last week. By law, we must include that disclaimer until we complete the registration process in those 14 states, which is already well underway. Every state has been very welcoming to our concept, without exception. We’ve been publishing our parent newspaper in Louisville, KY for almost three years. It’s readership continues to grow and it already far exceeds that of the 11 year old alternative weekly. We treat any violent crimes we cover very professionally and unsensationally.
Russ Maney
C.O.O. SNITCH
“Can’t wait to pick up the next issue.”
Apparently, people can’t. Maybe you should have looked at our Verified Audit numbers.