Jackson Free Press

The name is Orwellian, almost. Even as the Jackson Free Press and other local businesses believe that Jacksonians need to spend money with businesses actually owned locally, The Clarion-Ledger, an outlet of the Gannett Corp., promotes its own version of "ShopLocal" on its Web site and in its paper, heavily pushing the likes of Sam's and Home Depot—not exactly everyone's idea of "shopping local." The national newspaper trade magazine, Editor & Publisher, currently has a piece on the ShopLocal network, explaining how the "local" service works:

ShopLocal, an online shopping site, and Topix.net, a local news aggregator, launched a new advertising service today. ShopLocal is providing targeted advertising by Zip code via its SmartMedia platform to Topix. [...]

"Combining inventory and ShopLocal's SmartMedia technology with our ability to find and connect with local audiences is a win for both advertisers and online consumers who are increasingly getting their news and information online," Rich Skrenta, CEO of Topix, said in a statement.

Gannett, Tribune, and, until recently, Knight Ridder jointly own Topix and ShopLocal. It has yet to be determined if McClatchy, which acquired Knight Ridder in June, will take over Knight Ridder's share of the companies.

Previous Comments

ID

106903

Comment

I love that last sentence. Says it all, doesn't it? ;-)

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-07-13T12:36:03-06:00

ID

106904

Comment

If by local they mean "your branch of the corporate conglomerate", they yeah it'd be local....

Author

Ironghost

Date

2006-07-13T13:54:00-06:00

ID

106905

Comment

It's amazing how much they think they can insult people with names like this.

Author

Darren Schwindaman

Date

2006-07-13T14:11:33-06:00