Page Nine Index

The Uninvited Ombudsman Reports

Responses From Readers

Post your remarks on the actual blog—
Page Nine

Though many of my friends and fans think of me as The Gun Guy (because of all my gun-law books), I'm really a writer, have been for more than 20 years.

My fertile brain has been developing a journalism concept that's never been tried. It is a single page in lamestream newspapers ("Page Nine" regardless of the page it runs on), that covers the day's stories as they ought to read, not the way left-wing news rooms color things. Like FOX on steroids, but right down the middle, for the print world. It would be the most read page in the paper, a refreshing breath of clean air. Here are casual samples (without the hard sweat Page Nine would really need). It might make you say, "They'll NEVER run that!" but the page will be built around ad revenues from clear thinking mainstream businesses.

I love Page 9, keep up the great work, you are doing this great country a great service, reporting the truth! I have been getting your emails forwarded to me by a friend, can you add me to your email list please. Thank you again.

Want to let you know your efforts to keep us informed are sincerely appreciated. I enjoy the insight you bring to the table. Thanks, God bless you and yours.

Excellence in journalism!! I'm so thankful you've decided to go forward with this venture. I hope you will in turn send it out to us in email. I wish you the best!!

This is great stuff Alan, keep it coming please. Someone needs to do this as a counter point.

"Page Nine" is great, and much needed. Thanks a million for writing it, and for including me on your distribution list.

Looks good, Alan, and I encourage you to develop it. I admit that I've never heard of it being carried in a daily newspaper, and I think it has great potential.
     However, your claim that this journalistic concept has never been tried is mistaken, at least in one way. The John Birch Society published for several years a little weekly magazine called "A Review of the News," and it had a regular feature contained precisely what you are doing here. It took a quote from a mainstream periodical and then tore it to shreds with the truth. This column was called, "Correction, please!"
     I was in high school, and it was the part of the magazine I enjoyed most, turning to read that section before I read the articles of substance. Therefore, based upon my own anecdotal experience, I think your approach will have great reader appeal.
     You have to sell advertising, obviously. I would be interested in being an occasional advertiser.
—Daniel New, Father of Michael New, U.S. soldier who refused to wear U.N. uniform

I'm sending this email to myself under my "civilian" hat--the name I write books under. I just created a page on my website called THE RYTER REPORT http://www.jonchristianryter.com/RyterReport/headlines.html
I am looking for 21 people to write a weekly column on this site in exchange for my plugging their website with a link at the end of the column. PAGE NINE looks like an ideal column. Go over and take a look at my website. http://www.jonchristianryter.com. See if you would like to add your column to that section of my site. Everything else on the site is written by me. —Jon Spokes

Great issue! Here is your link:
http://www.wmsa.net/people/Alan%20Korwin/ak_062405_page_9_vol_3.htm
Thank you, Sheila, The Webmistress, President, Western Missouri Shooters Alliance
www.wmsa.net

This a great concept - maybe the NRA and SAF will help fund it (include a few "Armed Citizen" reports from the American Rifleman?). Let me know advertising rates as I might want a small ad to list my web site/books.
—Author and firearms trainer Chuck Klein

Page Nine is a catchy title. And, it’s an interesting concept. Don’t know that I can use it, but maybe bits and pieces ... :). I would suggest the subheads be: FROM THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: and, FROM THE UNINVITED OMBUDSMAN:; OR, use ACCORDING TO THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: and, ACCORDING TO THE UNINVITED OMBUDSMAN:. Just some thoughts — keep up the good work.
—Elaine Kolodziej, Publisher, Wilson County News, Floresville, TX 78114
<http://www.wilsoncountynews.com>http://www.wilsoncountynews.com

[REPLY:]
Go ahead and use as much as you like Elaine. The version that goes to my media list does as you say, mainstream instead of the more accurate lamestream. Gotta be sensitive to their sensitibilities. My fans love the lamestream approach though. You do what you think best.

Thanks for the note. It turns out I have been doing Page 9 on the op-ed page for years. I have an inexhaustible supply of column topics, simply correcting the myths, half-truths and outright lies perpetrated by the left-leaning media on a daily basis. However, you are right – newsrooms are dominated by group-think liberals and they would never print such a thing. I’m often amazed my columns get through.

No newspaper will take the ad as an op ed piece, and probably none of them will sell anyone the ad space either. They will claim, as they reject the ad, that they have against taking deceptive advertising...advertising that is designed to appear as editorial copy and, thus, designed to fool the reader into believing they are reading something other than advertising.
—Jon Spokes, Advertising Manager, The Washington Times, National Weekly Edition

[REPLY:]
Jon,
It's supposed to run as news, with appropriate research, and advertising is just the same part of the mix as any other page. Time will tell. It's not an advertorial, it's a revealing perspective on what otherwise passes for news. Sure, the mainstream will be resistent, just look at their current content, what else is new. It has caught fire on the web, with a half dozen print and radio outlets using it now. I'll have responses posted on my website soon, will advise.
The Washington Times would be the perfect place for a Page Nine. Will make national headlines, attract eyes, even from the tongue cluckers. I'll bet at least some of your advertisers would love to be positioned there, might even command a premium.
—Alan.

     I've been a writer for almost 40 years, and I think your idea has merit. However, I seriously doubt that any newspaper would give you an entire page, with or without the advertising. That would be just too much "real estate" to commit.
     Additionally, there's a question of sustainability. Your concept is quite ambitious and would a require a considerable staff or at least a sizable network of reliable stringers.
     Finally, we come to the matter of timeliness. As you well know, many news items just come and go, often overnight. Thus, it will demand considerable discretion on your part to make sure your topics are "current"...and a daily "Page Nine" would be almost impossible.
     On the cold hard fiscal side of things, this is just the kind of "news" that
deserves its own website. And that could be a great start as well, like the
Drudge Report or NewsMax. That's where the advertising revenue is!

Reprinted in the new edition of "The Libertarian Enterprise"
http://www.ncc-1776.org/. -Ken Holder, Editor

A great idea that is long over do. What can we do to help? I'll be glad to run it in the NYS Rifle & Pistol Association newsletter "The Bullet" with your permission. Tom King, President

Well done, Alan -- good luck with this. I'm sure you'll get many to pick you up ... if I can think of a "local" angle, I'll let you know! -Laurie Fagen, Publisher (Laurie@SanTanSun.com)

OK, you got the job. How about an Arizona media watch segment on my show each week? Would you like to discuss it over coffee? How about this? We take a few of the recent media gaffs and put them together for a segment that runs 3 or four minutes, or....do several of them and have a month full of page nine pieces and run one a week. That way we only need to hitch up every month or six weeks.
-Ed Phillips, Arizona Almanac

It would great for you to turn this into a local mediawatch blog. I predict you would get a lot of readers.
-Dave Kopel, Research Director, Independence Institute

You're right, they will never print it. It could, however, be among the most popular right-leaning blogs cited daily by major radio and news outlets and/or a fee-based email newsletter for the rabid right.

This latest e-mail I received from you has really impressed me! I love your "Page Nine" and the issues it is covering.

Great concept, great idea, and succinctly expressed. I wish you well in this venture.

Great idea. Been thinking how to do that sort of thing myself. I think some papers would refuse, advertising dollars or not.

I'm not the sort who laughs out loud easily... but I did several times while reading your Page Nine.

"Page Nine" sounds like a great idea, indeed. I just hope that there are enough papers around the U.S. to pick it up so that at least SOME of the
truth can get to the people. -Talk Show Host Ron Newman, Aurora, IL

Fantastic idea: I'd actually buy the local "left-wing waste of trees" solely for this feature! However, do you really want to help support the flagging lefty excuse for a newspaper? On the other hand, perhaps full engagement of the adversary is a more effective policy. There's only one way to find out.
James C Finn MD
Director of Cardiac Anesthesia
Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa

Good idea and example. You should submit it to Gannett.
-Anthony Imperato, President, Henry Repeating Arms, Co.

I would love to see a Page Nine feature in major papers but I'm afraid the idea has problems. Conservatives aren't going to buy left-leaning publications just to see the mainstream media get their nose (deservedly) rubbed in the dirt.

I like the phrase "lamestream media." The rest is an exercise in logorrhetic triviality.

You are, in fact, an ignorant, hate filled spewer of racist garbage, and it is people like you, with your ethnocentric rage, that have gotten this country in the mess it is in.

I am behind your effort 100%, we need to get the people's attention and this may be just what we need.

Terrific idea and you are just the talented writer to do it.
Christopher Smith, former president, Goldwater Institute

Brilliant (again).
Tom Jenney, former Dir. of Communications, Goldwater Institute

Go for it! I think a lot of people would appreciate your "Page Nine" viewpoints that take the spin out the news. Thanks.

Really enjoyed receiving your Page Nine e-mail. Appreciated the more complete and very different view of the news compared to what I got from the national socialist press. Thank you for turning the light on these stories. Hope to see more.

As usual Alan, your fertile imagination and wit have given us not only a laugh, but a lamentable head shake wishing that Page 9 would become the standard. We know that we are not getting an even handed treatment of the news, and that agendas are evident. Like the Devil's greatest accomplishment, "convincing us he doesn't exist”; the news mediums greatest accomplishment is: "convincing us that it is an unbiased source of the truth." Unlike most politicians, and their media defenders, I believe people can handle the truth. Keep on keepin' on Alan, I truly wish you had a daily column, it would make buying the Repulsive almost worth while. Dave Maneck

What a great idea! Lot's of questions like which paper/s, costs, expected backlash, and others. If you can actually do this I would start subscribing to a paper again; I gave up on the local San Francisco rags awhile back. Just as a guess, what do you think a partial monthly sponsorship would be $20, $50, $100,$$$$? I'll bet if you got 100 guys it would become a possibility. I hope you can pull it off.

Keep up the Good Work. Refreshing to know there are People out there that are willing to do what you are doing.

Alan -- Regardless of the merits of the idea, I can almost guarantee that it will backfire in your face if you use incendiary terms such as 'lamestream'. I am not a Republican or Democrat although I lean liberal on most issues besides guns and I know I would not read past that word. If you want to raise hackles, go ahead. If your goal is to get people to read alternative (and possibly accurate) perceptions, I suggest you turn down the provocation level a bit.
-Carol K. Oyster, PhD
Professor of Psychology, UWL

I love your stuff, but this is absolutely one of your very best - keep up the great work!

Posted Front Page today, Friday. Are you targeting any particular day of the week? Fridays would be great for American Daughter because we do our new lead editorial every Monday, have a guest editorial on Thursday, publish the California and New York columns on Monday and Wednesday, and have syndicated material on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We could use a jolt of new energy like this on Friday.
You are getting really good material. I sent a letter to the Arlington, Virginia local weekly, Sun Gazette, asking them to review your two columns that you have shared so far. While I don't think that your column would sell in the People's Republic of Arlington, the Gazette also publishes editions in hunt country, where it would be well received.
-Nancy Mathis, The Libertarian Enterprise, ncc-1776.org
"Nancy Matthis" <nmatthis@starpower.net>

I just wanted to drop you a note letting you know how much I appreciate your recent flurry of "Page Nine" posts. Great job!

I would say "OUTSTANDING!" But that could not be enough of a superlative description.

My message went to roughly 400 people this morning. Many of whom will probably forward it to their own group of concerned citizens. There are several hundred personal contacts that I haven't had time to forward it to yet. -Republican Party activist, Arizona

I agree totally with your position re: the media's bias(es) and I'm quite sure from reading you over these many years that you will do what you think is right, as you always do. I'm also convinced that you'll decide to continue with Page Nine, because it is sorely needed and will be welcomed, and here, for what it is worth, is one vote in strong concurrence. Many thanks for your fine work over the years.

Contact:
Alan Korwin
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