By Rosalie Tirella
The website “Worcester Wonderland.com” proves what we have been thinking for the last year or so (and people have been telling us): NO one reads Worcester Magazine (Mag) anymore – especially their website!
Most folks don’t seem as interested in the Worcester Magazine (now Mag) newspaper anymore. People tell me they don’t read it the way they used to and, just by making my rounds, checking my paper out, I think the anecdotal evidence stacks up: I see the Worcester Mag papers languishing in their drop off sites. Just sitting there. Not being picked up by the good people of Worcester. Deadsville. Sometimes I’ll watch a pile for a week – and they won’t go down.
And now this from the Worcester Wonderland website He/the site’s blogger/owner does not give his name but I am quoting him here:
“We’ve been looking at webstats for local media companies. This week we thought it would be interesting to peek at WOMAG’s [Worcester Magazine now Worcester Mag] stats. For some unknown reason we had the impression that WOMAG had a sizable web presence i.e., lots of traffic. The reality is, there ain’t a whole lot going on over there. Interesting is that their web-analytics service Quantcast, is blocked from public access. Wonder why? …. WOMAG [Worcester Magazine or Mag] [website] visitor traffic hovered between 1,500 and 7.0k monthly during 2010. Um… not a whole lotta locals making their way there considering the size of the County (750,000) and the City proper (173,000).”
No, Wonderland blogger-boy, there are not a lot of people checking out Woe-Mag’s website. For all the thousands of dollars they probably poured into building their website (sometimes they can cost as much as $28,000) and all the noise Woe Maggers make about themselves and their paper, 1,500 Worcester Mag web site readers pretty much blows.
So how did the Holden Landmark company run “Blow Mag” into the ground (1 reporter, 1 editor, 0 steady free-lancers – firings every other month up until six months or so ago)?
It may be that Worcester Mag will never recover from the way owner Kirk Davis and publisher Gareth Charter treated the old Worcester Mag staff when they bought the paper a few years ago. Everyone was promised there would be no firings – and everyone (except sales staff) was fired. Immediately! (and probably replaced by folks who would be paid a lot less money)
Some of those dumped Worcester Mag writers were local singers and songwriters with deep roots in the community. This might explain why the new Worcester Mag hasn’t been able to get/keep a writer who covers music/bands. PLUS: They have gone through a dozen reporters and editors in only two years. One of their hires – their last new editor – I think his name was Danny Cross – didn’t even last 3 weeks! I never saw his byline in the paper!
Something is woefully wrong at Woe Mag. Is it the lack of local roots? Publisher Gareth Charter’s supreme asshole-ness?
Perhaps we’ll never know …