Letters

AGENDA welcomes letters. Please send your comments, opinions, and criticisms to: AGENDA Editor, 220 S. Main SL, Ann Arbor, MI 48104.

Reader to Reader

On the back cover of the May 1992 AGENDA is a subscription form with the comment: "Money is our only barrier in winning the battle to combat state/media propaganda!" If that's not blunt enough, maybe this will reinforce it.

Here in Ithaca, NY we have just lost a free community weekly paper, "The Grapevine." Over its 18 years of publication "The Grapevine" went through changes. At one time it was "Ithaca's grassroots weekly," most recently, Tompkin County's community weekly." The paper started small, grew, and then began to shrink again. Why? Because it was losing money as it lost advertising. And people don't often subscribe to free papers.

"The Grapevine" provided a forum for non-mainstream views, delved a little more deeply than the big daily into local issues, and helped create community through features and special issues. But over the years, to keep money coming in, it seemed to begin catering to its advertisers, even running special business issues. In its history it has never been as radical as AGENDA- which perhaps accounts for its relative success, until now.

AGENDA boldly proclaims itself as "alternative" on its front page. Cover stories have never been shy. A few years ago I sold advertising for AGENDA. I was turned away by most of the business owners I approached. They wouldn't advertise because "the kind of people who read that paper don't buy things" or "not enough people read that kind of paper to make advertising worthwhile."

"The Grapevine" wasn't as "free" as AGENDA - it was controlled to some extent by who paid for it: the advertisers. So it didn't belong solely to the community. It still didn't survive. And we are feeling its loss! Now we're stuck with the "state/media propaganda." AGENDA still belongs to the community and Is barely surviving. If anything, AGENDA Is more vulnerable than The Grapevine" was.

So it comes down to the same old thing: financial support. Tell those advertisers you saw their ad in AGENDA. Tell those would-be advertisers that AGENDA readers do spend money. And when you have a few extra bucks or need to buy a gift, get a subscription. AGENDA is still your paper and will continue to be, unless you prefer the Daily News.