After Lefty’s usual token Thanksgiving editorial and the praise of his beautiful daughter, we see nothing of any real value. He should have stuck with praising his daughter and just left it at that.
But that is not Lefty as he tries to convince what few readers he still has of his relevancy. A relevancy he seems worried about.
I say worried because of you drop down to the end of his screed you read, “It’s true, we don’t have as many print readers as we used to. But when you include our social media numbers, it’s actually pretty close.”
It doesn’t dawn on him that delivering such an inferior product as we see daily in the Lazy C, many former readers have left seeking objective, balanced reporting elsewhere, no longer buying the paper he writes for and manages.
As my readers know I have been blogging much less due to smears from those I used to support earlier this year and have made the point that they succeeded only in shooting themselves in the foot since in the 6 ½ years this blog has been running, I have exceeded 700,000 views.
Paltry numbers to a mainstream media website in that time, I know. But for a local, small time, one-man blog, not to shabby.
But apparently enough to worry ol Lefty as I received an email from him recently;
“Hey, someone just called to say you were saying you’ve had 700,000 views ‘over the years’.”
“Don’t you think — to be fair — you should break that number down? If I recall you get about 60,000 views a year. That breaks down to about 170 views a day. And as is true with most web sites or blogs it’s likely you have a few fans who check in more than one. So let’s say only twice although it’s very likely you have a few folks who check in with you much more.”
“That means you likely have about 90 unique visitors a day. Actually quite good for a local blog. But it’s about 90 Lew.”
“Just in case you wanted to do the math.”
“Happy Thanksgiving! And again, 90 is really very good for a local blog.”
Now, ask yourself, why would he be worried about this blog and my numbers? Why show the least bit of concern about what I claim?
And why try to marginalize my blog by fabricating that 60,000 number and then ask for a “breakdown” too further erode the numbers to a much lesser 90 from his own imagination?
Note too, since he mentions “social media” in his screed, he does not apply anything near that in his inflation of Lazy C readers, I guess not realizing the same formula must apply to their own online site, multiple visits by the same people throughout a day.
But of course, he supplies no actual numbers relating to their own readership, does he?
Also ignored by Lefty is how much I cut back on posting new posts this year.
Anyway, I replied with a screenshot of my stats from that day and received back;
“Ha! Looks like I was about exactly right. Shows 85. Again, those actually are pretty darn good numbers for a blog but maybe just a little disingenuous for you to use the 700,000 and not the 85 a day,” along with, “And let me know when you ‘report’ that 85 number so I can check your blog out that day. Thanks!”
Knowing that there was nothing “disingenuous” about my claim of views; I sent him back a daily count of views and visitors, the lowest day being 103 visitors with an average of about 218 in the 27 days noted.
He responded with, “You’re still getting about 60,000 views a year right?”
Growing a little tired of his effort at slighting, I gave him links to the review pages set by WordPress for the past two years, 2012 showing about 160,000 views and 2013 with about 130,000.
That elicited the response of;
“Great! Fair enough. You’d simply double my numbers then. Little more. The math says you’re getting — on average — 356 visits a day. Not unlike any blog or web site, those aren’t unique visits. Most of your followers visit you multiple times a day. But even if they only visited you twice a day, that would mean you have 178 different folks looking at you every day.”
“Again, for a local blog, that’s very good! Like any local blog it was never intended or expected to reach a mass audience like mainstream media. But it is a bit difficult for any local blogger to argue that they’re big time players.”
“And I don’t say that to suggest local bloggers are unimportant. Frankly I think they’re very important. But that’s a different point than saying you’re hitting the masses.”
In my estimation, he’s either worried or so small minded that he would even be concerned about this small local blog. I say that because nowhere have I ever claimed being a “big time player” or “hitting the masses.”
I am not naive enough to think my free blogsite that only costs $99 a year is comparable to either the Lazy C or more costly sites such as Couv.com, both of which employ paid staff.
But it is apparent that my efforts have worried some, for whatever reason they have.
Be it Lefty Lou trying to belittle my hobby or operatives from the CCGOP smearing me because I do not toe the line and display objectivity in exposing when they operate underhandedly too, my little hobby seems to have caught their attention, even though I hold no delusions of shutting either down.
In my final reply to Lefty I said,
“You’re assuming many arguments I have never made. If you recall a few years ago, I told you I never had any delusions that my blog would shut down your paper.”
“What I hope to do is offer the balance you lack and not be a mouthpiece for either party.”
I will grant you that back in 2008 when I began this blog, I did have intentions of promoting the Republican Party, but saw the dark underside of them as I had years earlier of the Democrats and decided to just write about issues of interest to me and give my opinion on what matters to me.
Initially I did send out invitations for others to write on the blog with the intent of hopefully growing one day to be a larger scale site, but with no takes in the two years that offer was out, it was withdrawn and I settled on just writing myself, occasionally accepting submitted posts.
And the blog steadily grew to the point of the over 700,000 views I spoke of earlier.
And that seems to have rubbed some the wrong way with their efforts at belittling and smearing.
In the end, their efforts only make each look small, very small as they will not gain any control over me or force me to either close down the blog or cover issues how they want me too.
As I wrote months ago, I will write when I want, if I want and how I want.
I have no favorites and even though I lean conservative, they will receive no special favors in giving them a pass should their underhanded tactics continue.
Be they elected officials, newspaper editors or party leaders; you’re open game here when I feel you screwed up.
And as for the paper, if you are concerned over this small time blog site, maybe you need look deeper into your mirror at why you are losing readers hand over fist.
This blog doesn’t hurt you. You hurt yourself with your one-sided reporting, favoritism to the Democrats and obsessive smears of select individuals while you raise your blinders to corruption elsewhere.
Clean up your own act instead of worrying about a small time blogger.
