The News by a Hare

Pity poor readers who are suffering through the latest round of the daily newspaper advertising war, this one starring Harold Hare. Harold Hare is a spaced-out rabbit who tells us that the Dallas News has “always” led the Times Herald in Sunday circulation.

Mr. Hare is a parody of last summer’s Times Herald campaign, which characterized the Herald as a hare, overtaking the tortoise, which represented the News. The Herald campaign announced the evening paper had overtaken the News in total Sunday circulation. Now the News is saying it just isn’t so, that the News has always led in Sunday circulation. Here we have one journalistic enterprise calling the other a liar. Whom are readers to believe?

For the record: The Herald’s claim of Sunday circulation leadership stemmed from a six-month internal audit covering October, 1973, through March, 1974. When compared with the News’ internal audit for the same period, the Herald led by a bare 379 copies. But months later, when the Audit Bureau of Circulation came in and conducted its official audit, ABC took 845 copies away from the Herald, tipping the scales back to the News. This official ABC audit is the basis for the News’ claim that it has “always” led. (Technically the Herald did lead in the second half of that six-month period. But the News’ lead in the first half of that period overwhelmed the Herald’s lead in the second half, giving the News the six months’ average lead, generally considered more important in the industry.)

Some Herald folk are quite offended by the News’ campaign, and claim the reason the lead shifted back to the News was because of a policy change by ABC in how street sales are counted – a change over which the Herald had no control.

Meanwhile, there are those who feel the News made abad promotional error in ever getting sucked into anexpensive public argument over comparative circulationin the first place. The critics of the News retaliatoryHarold Hare campaign feel readers probably could careless which paper has the most Sunday circulation, andthink a more institutional approach, trumpeting theNews’ stability and reliability might have been morefruitful.