Here’s an cute ad that the Journal ran back on Feb. 12, 1971. The nearly 3/4 page ad promoting the newspaper itself features the comic strip character Dennis the Menace.
The tousle-haired tyke had first appeared in the pages of the Journal back in 1955 (which I wrote about here). The popular one-panel strip enjoyed a high profile location right at the bottom of the editorial page for years.
The ad is interesting because it mentions a few of the things that made the Journal special back then, including syndicated columns such as Ann Landers and Art Buchwald, as well as the great local features, such as Bill Scrivo’s People, the Hot Line help column, reporter Jim Mahony’s column, etc. Unfortunately, too many papers have had to cut their staffs in order to save costs and stay afloat.
I really think newspapers such as the Journal today really need to bring back those kind of special local features and columns, if they want to have any chance at all of rebuilding their circulation numbers.