Consumer watchdog Mike Boguslawski, whose career started at The Bristol Press, said Friday that he's in the paper's corner.
Boguslawski said he is "really outraged" that the Journal Register Co. would even consider shutting down the historic daily.
"We have to do everything we can to save our paper," Boguslawski said from his brother-in-law's home in Florida.
Boguslawski developed a statewide reputation as a television consumer advocate -- a career that ultimately took him to Los Angeles and beyond -- but he said he's always "missed my hometown."
He plans to move back to Bristol in early January because he has taken a job as the director of consumer relations for American Home & Property Services of West Haven, a company that collects yearly fees from homeowners with the promise to repair water and sewer lines running between the street and houses.
Boguslawski said it's a brilliant concept for a business and is proving wildly successful. He's meeting with the Bristol water department next month to talk about its prospects locally.
Boguslawski said that he doesn't understand the opposition to the concept of the government bailing out newspapers.
He said that journalists wouldn't kowtow to government officials even if they receive big money from them.
He said that reporters have always tweaked the powerful and they don't care about the cash.
Boguslawski said he remembers a time on Connecticut TV when he did a story assailing a business that had purchased $1 million worth of advertising just two days earlier.
"I worked 'em over," Boguslawski recalled.
"It's just a roll of the dice" who gets lambasted in the press, he said, and money has nothing to do with it.
Boguslawski said he'd like to see the federal government pony up 80 percent of the money needed to save local newspapers, with the state and municipalities chipping in 10 percent each.
"What do you besides a paper to tell what is going on in a community? We'd have nothing," Boguswlawski said.
*******Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
20 comments:
Thank God for Mike Boguswlawski.
Aw, the Kiss of death!
who ?????
Who is the greatest self promoter, Bogie or Johnson?
Bogy's new company sounds like a scam.
Are Bogie and Johnson really the same person?
Mikey Bugs:
Sorry but taxpayers don't have enough to subsidize the Bristol dePress.
The taxpayers of Connecticut are going to have a hard enough time bailing out their own state with it's consistantly over-bloated budget (the fault of the idiot majority that voted into office over-spending liberals).
Concerned Conservative:
Is anything you say actually based in reality, or do you just pull it out of your box of anti-government, free market always works bs?
Concerned Conservative:
What on earth are you going to do for fun once you get your wish and there's no more Bristol Press to kick around anymore?
You are simply poison.
There are so many inane comments here in response to me, it's hard to know where to start.
First of all anonwestconnstupid:
Are you saying that the state budget deficit is caused by free-markets and capitalism not over-spending liberalism? Excuse me while I laugh at the fool you are. How does the socialist utopia which was ingrained during your mediocre state eduaction remedy the problem of an unaffordable state budget?
December 21, 2008 12:28 AM: I have actually read/bought the Press more than any other paper. I just am sick of reading Collins' insitent whining about his doomed employer. You are a salable stooge which makes you even worse than poison (which I am certainly not).
Concerned Conservative is not anti-government, just less government. During your days in our liberal education system, did you ever learn about "survival of the fittest"? The old, starving or sick deer feeds the coyotes. It's the natural order. Same goes for businesses.
CC
What ever th epast, the state budgets have been in balance and were in balance until the Revenue dropped off due to the current market situation. The only real increase will be in assistance to those in need.
Butt the market failed, and yes, we can blame the politicians, the government, but that is the underlying cause of our current situation.
Unfortunately too many fail to see that or fail to admit that, and until they do, we will continue to flounder.
Bogie for Mayor
A Smith:
You're wrong. The state budget has barely ever been "in balance" with anything. The budget increases every year substantially. The gov't simply raises taxes.
Perhaps you weren't around in 2003 when Governor Rowland had to threaten to lay off state workers because of the deficit. Perhaps you don't recall how Gov. Rell was forced to raise the cigarette tax and impose taxes on other goods to "balance" the budget. This happens every year. You're living in a dream world if you don't realize the battles, sacrifices and hardship people have to face in order to pay for our bloated state government. Perhaps you don't realize that we as citizens of Connecticut are one if not the highest taxed in the country. Perhaps you don't know we have one of the highest corporate taxes (or again it may be the highest). Perhaps you don't understand that businesses not only match FICA and pay other income taxes they pay taxes on their capital equipment (the things that people use to make product thus giving their job a reason to exist). Perhaps, most likely, you're just another ignorant fool drinking the cool-aide bumbling back and forth through life watching Law and Order and American Idol?
The state ha sa "balanced Budget" each and every year. It is based on projections, expenses and revenues. The accuracy of these projections is somewhat politically driven by the politicians, for selfserving purposes. But the budget is in balance when approved.
This budget has been hit more by loss of revenue than by increased expenses, the revenue side more unpredictable and uncontrollable.
Yearly increases are still balanced: check the budget books and the approval legislation.
Highest taxed or not ( a separate issue) we still start the year with a balanced budget
I have a pretty good grasp of budgets, and may not agree with what is in ithem, but they are balanced,
We can start our discussion from there.
Concerned Conservative:
You only use the press to whine anonyomously !
The question should be what or who can you use next ?
A Merry Christmas to All!!
I'm in Concerned Conservative's corner!
Frank,
You are in intellectual trouble!
Frank should go live in the woods then . He Frank the republican seems to like the law of the jungle. We are not animals. (maybe he is).
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