Tehachapi News Bans Tehachapi Daily
After the Where’s Tehachapi DOT com website was relaunched as a 100% completely free to use site an article was written, submitted and rejected by the Tehachapi News Blog because it was stated that the post was in violation of the user policy (commercial advertising). Hmm… if we are a non-commercial website (remember we are free) how can it be of commercial nature. So a reply was made to Ms. Vicky Thrasher, General Manager of the Tehachapi News to ask why our article was considered commercial while Home Depot’s “free clinics” were not (Home Depot has an article on the blog site) but a reply was never received.
Then a blog post was created about our latest contest… that post was deleted with no explanation. An email was sent to Ms. Vicky Thrasher again and her reply was to call her if we wished to discuss this issue further. Ms. Thrasher felt that having a post about Tehachapi Daily on TehachapiNews.com was a threat to their traffic and why would she want to encourage people to go to a site where advertising was free when Tehachapi News is getting “cash money” for advertising on their site. Well, I can definitely see Ms. Thrasher’s point here because obviously free advertising is well, free. But an explanation was given that our site was completely different. The advertising on Tehachapi Daily is a directory, one must search for a particular product or store…we don’t offer any homepage or sidebar advertising and we are not a blog either.
It is simple and plain that we are not a direct competitor but apparently Ms. Thrasher doesn’t see it that way. We are not an up-to-the-date news website (not that Tehachapi News is either…ha, ha), we don’t charge for advertising and we’re not a blog. We are a community resource and a business directory. The purpose of Where’s Tehachapi DOT com is to share information that we couldn’t find when we moved here. The site is maintained by two people out of a home and [we] will never have employees. Most of all this website is a playground for testing new code and plug-ins as the same tools are used to build websites for clients of my commercial business, Search Friendly Webdesign; at the same time, the community can use the site because it is really a rather simple site to build and maintain.
In an effort to get the word out about Tehachapi Daily so that businesses can have some affordable (free) and worthy advertising and the Tehachapi community can post without censorship, Ms. Thrasher was asked if Tehachapi Daily could pay for advertising in the print edition of the paper. Her response was that even if we wanted to pay for advertising in their print edition they would reject it. This is your typical case of media censorship, if the papers don’t want you to read it, you won’t find it.
I’m sure this isn’t the only case of Tehachapi News censoring online and print publications and I’m quite positive that the Tehachapi News is not writing or doing anything for the interest of their customers or readers. Believe me, Tehachapi Daily advertising in Tehachapi News wouldn’t even touch their bottom line. Tehachapi News’ attitude about not advertising another website in their print edition just because they have a web presence is cowardice. Maybe Tehachapi Daily will offer homepage and sidebar advertising…for free.
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