To the Editor:

Corrections or additions?

Between the LInes

You can bet that no one is reading this week’s cover

story more closely than the bosses of the people like us who put out

all the newspapers, magazines, and books that you in the Princeton

area seem to devour. The premise of the story, you will see by turning

to page 18, is that many operations in the publishing industry are

labor-intensive and inefficient, and that computerization can lead

to more books at a lower cost.

But, we hasten to point out, not even the digerati of the publishing

world have figured out how to replace an editor with a computer. Editing

remains a high-pressure, low-tech operation. Spell checkers (which

we use) and grammar software packages (which we don’t use) may help,

but they still do not replace the traditional method: To read copy

carefully and thoughtfully, and even out loud. Primitive though that

may sound, it’s still the best.

How carefully do people read U.S. 1? Consider this: The other day

we got a hand-addressed envelope containing the upper left hand portion

of page 1 from the April 22 issue. In the blurb promoting the free

singles ads a word was highlighted in the sentence indicating that

you can "place your ad for free in U.S. 1." The circled word

was "for" and the note said that "`for free’ is wrong.

Just `free’ will do."

Well, maybe. In the very next sentence our blurb writer proclaimed

that you can "respond for just $1." And the grammar police

person did not circle the "for" in that sentence. We think

our blurb writer deserves credit for maintaining a parallel construction

in the two sentences. And besides, if we were criticizing the offer,

we would argue that nothing is really free — or for free, for

that matter. You singles still have to pay with your valuable time.

So write an ad for yourself if you want, we won’t charge you to print

it, and we will only ask respondents to pay a dollar for each response

— just to cover the overhead of sticking an address and a stamp

on their envelope. See page 44 for details and for this week’s participants.

Top Of Page
To the Editor:

SINCE STRAUBE Centers announced the free "Pennington LIVE"

message board at www.straube.com/board/ on April 6, the site has been

accessed at the rate of 112,420 visitors a year, or an average of

308 visitors a day, Tuesdays being the highest traffic day with over

900 visitors.

Anyone seeking exposure to such a large Web-savvy audience in the

area is welcome to post their own messages free of charge at www.straube.com/board/

in the following categories: News and Hot Topics, Irresistible Bargains,

Computer Club.

The "Irresistible Bargains" section is managed by J. Dale

Foote of Straube Center, and "Computer Club" by Richard Butterfoss,

former Pennington councilman. Joseph Sinniger of Pennington is in

charge of the "News and Hot Topics" section. Together with

his wife Rosemary, the former librarian, they also host the Pennington

Borough and Pennington Day Web pages which are particularly attractive

and useful this year.

Win Straube

Honolulu

Corrections or additions?

— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.