Why Low Income Readers Suck
    It was nearly three decades ago and the demographics along Route 441 in central Broward were just beginning to change from retired elderly folks with a degree of disposal income to working stiffs struggling to raise their families.
   In addition, the demographics in the area were reflecting a growing number of non-white minorities.
   So much for setting.
   And the scene? 
   It was another a weekly Sun-Sentinel management meeting hosted by newspaper’s young publisher Scott Smith, a former Chicago investment whiz kid who went on to assume total control of print media for the Tribune Company – before walking away with millions after engineering the sale of the media company to Sam Zell of corporate “grave digger” fame.
    Anyhow Scott, who today enjoys luxury living in his Fort Lauderdale waterfront McMansion, was lecturing his management team (us) on the ideal Sun-Sentinel reader lo those many years ago.
    We’re here, Smith explained, to serve our advertisers first, our investors second and our readers third.
    Which was how and why Smith was totally pissed about the Sun-Sentinel’s current campaign to attract new readers in Central Broward.
    Yesterday’s retired residents with disposal incomes were one thing, Smith noted. But lower middle-class working stiffs sweating every hard earned dollar were – readership-wise -- about as desirable as a dose of the Clapp.
    Why?
    Any reader who can’t support the newspaper’s advertisers is not worth the Sun-Sentinel’s time, talent, or money, Smith fumed, clearly aware some of us newsrroom types were dangerous Liberal types who failed to share his view of the less fortunate as shitty consumers. 
    Anyhow, to continue para-phrasing Smith's position, as a newspaper markets go, Central Broward Sucks the Big   One! 
    So…
    Now it’s today and more than 30 decades have passed…
    Take the time to read between the lines and you’ll soon see that today’s ideal Sun-Sentinel newspaper “consumer” sure ain’t on Food Stamps, Medicaid, or Unemployment (even though the poor suffering bastards trapped in such Hard Times circumstances make up the fastest growing segment of South Florida’s population).
     Not that Scott Smith – or the profit-obsessed bastard’s running today’s Sun-Sentinel – give a shit.
                                       John deGroot