They May Be Dying, But They Still Buy Ink By the Barrel
Next to “We never let facts get in the way of a good story,” my favorite saying about the news business is “Never get into an argument with someone who buys ink by the barrel.” It’s been attributed to Mark Twain, though I can’t confirm it.
No matter who said it first, we know the adage has been around for a long time and has been proven true time and again. So why did a hospital in northern New Jersey think it could escape the fate of so many others?
The Hackensack University Medical Center was upset that a newspaper called The Record was going to write an unflattering story about some of the hospital’s board members. So — you guessed it — an administrator called and threatened to cancel all advertising on the newspaper’s website and in print.
The story ran anyway.
Then the hospital went a step further and said the newspaper couldn’t be sold in its gift shops or anywhere on campus. And, you guessed it again, The Record wrote a story about the hospital’s reaction.
The incident ended as you might expect. The hospital apologized.
And to make the Hackensack University Medical Center look even worse, the story was written up in the New York Times. This is what’s called learning a lesson the hard way.
