A month on earth is scant proof of staying power. Yet so fresh, so screwy is the concept behind Chicago’s newest free weekly that all this column’s doubts are swept before it, including grave ones about distribution, profit potential, and suitability for reading without poking out an eye.
I suggested to Asher that he’d designed himself into a dead end, that serious growth, the kind of growth most founders of free weeklies pray leads to early retirement, was pretty near impossible. “I’ve done experiments,” he said, “where I’ve rolled up a bunch of them taped together. The practical limit is about 15 to 20 feet before it gets really thick and pretty much unmanageable. But we’re considering going to two sides and going to nine-point [type]. We’re using ten-point now and a fairly generous amount of leading.”
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The Scroll’s press run is about 1,000, Asher said. Wrapped in rubber bands, the scrolls are distributed at downtown colleges and a couple of spots in Lincoln Park and Lakeview. Issue four, out this week, carries a reprint of his Vietnam veterans screed. Why? I asked. Because he’s light on staff, and it was already in the can, he said. “And because I believe very passionately in it.”
Predictably reactionary, thought Peterson on reading the piece. He soon thought worse. While thumbing through recent issues of American Rifleman and American Hunter seeking their perspectives on the militia movement he came across an article by Marion Hammer, first vice president of the National Rifle Association, that both these NRA journals carried.
“Comparative crime rates clearly make that point. The violent crime rate is 22% lower in states with Right to Carry laws vs. restrictive states.”
“For whatever reason, they like this gentleman’s material,” mused Peterson, who’s gotten nowhere trying to break into Forum from the left, aside from one piece that ran “in edited form” in 1992. “But the thought that he neglected to give his sources is just ridiculous. He just thought he could put one over on them.”
