WE’RE B-A-A-C-K

Editor’s Note: We received a few responses to the April Fool’s issue (“End of an Era – Despite years of success as the county’s largest circulation newspaper, the Weekly ends its print edition and will go exclusively mobile and online,” April 1-7.)

We appreciated hearing from friends and foes alike. A sample of the letters, e-mails and Facebook comments follows:

NEW DEPRESSION

I had been depressed for four days until I read that your edition was an April fool’s joke. Good one!

And by the way,less is not more, less is less, always has been always will be.

Whoever said less is more is an idiot!

Keep on truckin’, man!

WELCOME NEWS

It’s about effing time.

Michelle (via website)

DISTRACTION INFRACTION

Walter Lippman said it in the 1920s… “A Good Newspaper is a Nation (Community) speaking to Itself.” Newspapers were the basis of the Democratic Process and the 4th Estate (Executive, Judicial, Legislative & PRINT)… As we lose them, we lose our chances for rational, informed information & discussion. TWITTER is NOT Democracy – It’s an example of the AGE of INSTANT DISTRACTION.

RISING BILE

Shoulda put it up for sale. Someone would have bought it. Or they could have brought in new blood and revamped the staff.

I won’t be looking at it online or on my phone. I spend way too much time burning my eyes in front of a computer for work and other neccessary evils. This won’t be another. Reading the print version was my sitting out on my patio with a cup-a-joe activity, or grabbing it and heading for the beach for a read. No way I’ll be doing that with a laptop or squinting at some tiny 2-inch phone screen.

Really leaves advertisers in the lurch. The cost of the worthless Herald and Californian will leave no avenue for all the hospitality-based business, retail, etc., to advertise at a reasonable cost. You can BET the ad rates in the Herald and Californian will go up immediately.

A lot of bile was in Brad and Paul’s statement. Blame everyone, yeah, that was good. Leave a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. See ya!

SHAKING IT UP

OK, Monterey County Weekly, you had me going there. I was all prepared to write a weepy, sentimental obituary on the Library blog for you as I did for my beloved Gourmet magazine last winter. Not until after lunch when I had a chance to read the rest of the article did it become clear that you guys really know how to make an April Fool out of this devoted reader! The pullquote, “Let’s face it: Six people can do the work of 26,” gave me hope. Then the story just gets funnier and funnier right up to the sweet conclusion. Thanks for your usual great job of shaking things up, and long live the MCWeekly.

LEEP OF FAITH

You stopped a lot of hearts with this one! Ed Leeper was in a cafe with the intellectuals this morning and they were ALL fooled. He called me to commiserate and was SOO happy it was a joke!

Kira (via website)

TAXIDERMY FAN

Bradley Zeve a social editor? [Erik] Cushman a taxidermist? Mark Anderson a recluse living and writingin the Weekly parking lot would not be a surprise.

Hail tothe printed word. You’ve done it again, getting people to read, think and digest a news piece prepared on recycled substrata and veg ink. I look forward to next year’s April Fool’s Day edition!

BRASS BAD, KERA GOOD

If this is true, and not an April Fool’s joke, I’m not going to visit the web-version. What’s the point if Kera no longer writes for the paper (blog?). She’s the best reporter in the county. Hopefully next Thursday there’ll be another issue on the newsstands with Kera’s brave and balanced articles. The top brass at the Weekly is a bunch of jerks in any event.

SQUIDWATCHER

MCWeekly was the place to keep up with the politics of Monterey County. What will happen to Squid? How about “Ask a Mexican”? Say it ain’t so, Bradley Zeve!

PANTY RAID

Wow… folks that got their panties in a bunch… HILARIOUS! I’ve advertised with the Weekly for a very long time… years. My rockin’ rep Windy hooked me up with the online ads a few months ago, trying a new venue plus the paper. Iread the front page andI thought, “Ohh, thank you, Windy, for getting me on line ads… (she MUST have known this was coming down)… How will she sell online ads ONLY and not be on welfare??? THEN, I read the article!!! GRRRREAT FUN!!!

ATTEMPT REWARDED

Best April Fool’s joke in the county! Only the Weekly could pull that one off… or actually attempt it.

TWEETING BIRD

Well done! I actually laughed out loud.I’m looking forward to articles140 characters long that I can read illegally while driving.

REGRESSIVE REDUNDANCY

The April First online onlyannouncement appeared to be a natural progression into the new millennium but was actually a regressive redundancy.

All the reasons stated for transforming the Monterey County Weekly intodigital format were completely fabricated and irrelevant?

What’s wrong with NOT being the very first local ink and paper publication to go all digital?

VIRTUAL REALITY

Actually, I think you’d save a lot of money with a virtual edition and could add video and so on. Just a thought and I’m no April fool!

CARMEL KUDOS

Well, I bought into it. And was very sad.

Thank you for your attention to our activities. It means a great deal. And, I for one, can confirm that when one of our events is mentioned in the Weekly, attendance is definitely better.

SEND WILNER TO MSNBC

Your going online while making a profit and employing a lot of people is incredibly stupid. You’re not going to service advertisers like print. My opinion… in one year you’re going to be gone.

Those thousands of readers, mainly senior, who have no interest in electronic gizmos, are lost to you. The techno dummys who talked you into it are wrong, bud. Take Squid down to the nearest leftist tide pool and toss him. Send Paul Wilner to MSNBC as Keith Olbermann’s assistant. And Tom Tomorrow to Nancy Pelosi’s Strategy Department.

The key words here are making a profit and employing people – you threw away both for inanimate electronics.

Correction: “Carmel Counting,” April 1-7, contained some inaccuracies. Postage is included in the price of conducting the election. Ballots arriving by mail are placed in a separate locked box in City Hall, not the one on the counter. And although the Weekly correctly reported the city didn’t engage in formal bidding before awarding the contract to conduct the election, City Clerk Heidi Burch obtained a quote from one other private company, Sequoia Voting Systems, before doing so.