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News
| Economy
| Culture
| Opinion
| Lifestyle
| Nature |
Volume 15,
Number 16 |
Also
in this section: September was a good month, after
a spike for the May elections and the usual lower summer numbers
61,996 readers, more than 108,000
September visits
The
Panama News is a hardscrabble micro-enterprise --- one guy who works
more or less full-time and a small group of regular contributors ---
but it has been around for nearly 15 years and has a reputation. We
don't get government advertising, aren't owned by any of the
illustrious families, aren't willing shills for the fraud artists, try
to publish the important truths about our country, region and world and
aren't too proud to run a correction when we get things wrong.
Things are different than they were when we started late in 1994. Then we were a print tabloid, now we are online only. Then we had a founding publisher putting substantial money into the operation, now our capital is "sweat equity." The economy tanked between mid-1998 and mid-2002, we had an insane speculative bubble, and now the economy has turned down again. We have more competition than we did back then, but lately some of the wealthier competitors --- the Panama edition of the Miami Herald and the Panama Star --- have folded. Some of the websites that took direct aim at us have folded, others have gone insane and more news sites are starting up. We are not particularly concerned. We are holding our own. We had nearly 62,000 readers ("unique sites," or different computers from which people logged onto our website), who paid more than 108,000 visits to us in September. In Panama it is not considered a crime for a communications medium to exaggerate the number of people whom it reaches and some of the media do this. Mostly, however, readership, listenership and audience numbers are guarded as secrets in our media business culture. Not that it matters to the ad agency cartel --- their ad placements are made based on a spider's web of family ties, kickback arrangements and friendships rather than for the benefit of their clients, businesses who want to get their messages out to specific audiences. Does somebody among Panama's English-language media give advertisers more exposure for less money? We can't honestly say whether we know, but we seriously doubt it. Certainly the representations of a website that keeps claiming to be number one and keeps showing Webalizer charts that indicate far more sites than visits --- more different computers logging onto the website than there are actual visits!!! --- are to be taken with a few boulders of salt. The Panama News periodically publishes its download statistics as a matter of business transparency and good faith with advertisers and potential advertisers.
Also
in this section: News
| Economy
| Culture
| Opinion
| Lifestyle
| Nature
Noticias | Opiniones | Archive | Unclassified Ads | Home Panama
Hotel: Luxury
apartment rentals
in Casco Viejo, Panama City |
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©
2009 by Eric Jackson email: editor@thepanamanews.com or e_l_jackson_malo@yahoo.com Mailing
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