Please please please

It's been a good long time since we've told you folks about what CityBeaten's been up to. CityBeaten, you might recall, is the Reader's competition in San Diego's alternative-newsweekly market. Since it's a slow news day, we thought it a fine time to check back in with them.

Oh look! CityBeaten signed its name to an editorial on its own website, under the header, "How Jim Holman thinks." It's all about how Reader publisher Jim Holman signed a letter indicating his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage, and once spent money on a parental notification campaign regarding minors seeking abortions. Why report on this now? We'll give you a hint: it ain't because it's news. Take it, CityBeaten:

"Why are we telling you this? Are we being self-serving by letting you know how Holman thinks and how he spends the money he's made off of advertising in the Reader? You betcha. Absolutely. We'd very much like to be the biggest weekly in town. We're greedy like that. But it's also a bit of buyer-beware transparency. It's hard to know where your money goes after you spend it. When it's spent with Jim Holman and the Reader, we're here to help." [Emphasis ours.]

Reader editor Holman, gleefully concocting his next dastardly plan.

That sound you hear is the last brick left in the wall between editorial and advertising, tumbling resignedly to the ground. What's saddest about it, though, is the timidity. If you're gonna go hooking, people, put a little shimmy into it and smile! Anyway, in the spirit of print-media solidarity (it's hard out here on the street corner in front of Starbucks), we here at SD on the QT are willing to help out. Here's our short-n-sweet version of CityBeaten's editorial:

"Dear advertisers: if you do business with the Reader, you hate gays and women. So please give us your money. Thank you."