Age of Fake News, National Enquirer Should be Booming?
The other day while I was grocery shopping, I stumbled on an aisle that still was sporting the National Enquirer. As kids we would buy covers with Bat Boy and circulate them around the school halls, but you would think there is enough fake news on the internet to satisfy the craving to read more. 
The National Enquirer has decided to become more political and more pro Trump. Yet even with that change in covers, its traditional print circulation has fallen like many other print publications. NE has gone from 516,000 in 2014 to 364,000 in 2016. The National Enquirer does have an online site and surprisingly the ads floating in included Citi Bank, Allstate Insurance and Kohl’s which you would never see advertising in the tabloid’s print version.
Looking through the Enquirer as I waited to check out, I was reminded of how important trust is in order to be an influential medium. So I’m pretty sure you will never see tabloid journalism listed on the Most Trusted and Influential Advertising Media list. Good bye Bat Boy, you were funny when I was 12. Now you’re relegated to one aisle at the market.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle. After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant. He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.” Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.” One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College. Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board. Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.
