Forbes' Elisabeth Eaves recently looked at efforts by national and global brands to market themselves as local businesses, and concluded that whether or not such tactics deserved to be decried as local washing "depends on your definition of local." Jackson Free Press publisher Todd Stauffer singles out Eaves and her argument in a column this week. "Actually, the definition of local isn't up for grabs, and it isn't just marketing," he writes. "The entire concept of 'local' is fundamental both to America's economic recovery and to the potential for progress and self-sufficiency for our local communities." Stauffer goes on to explain that what Eaves and other local-washing defenders are "are doing is purposely conflating the concepts 'local' and 'locale.'"

The advertising broker and technology firm Pontiflex says in a recently released report that marketers will pay publishers an average price of $2.27 for each reader that fills out a form with their name, email address and other bits of personal information. "That hefty price suggests publishers should consider abandoning cheap ads sold for guaranteed prices and should instead try to use space on their web pages to convince readers to turn over their personal information," Forbes' Evan Hessel writes.

The two largest American theater chains have begun in recent months to reduce or eliminate movie time listings in newspapers, directing consumers to their websites or third-party sites instead. A representative from the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) says that by removing these paid ads, the theater chains are taking away something important to readers. "For a reader, some things that are ads are actually considered news," NAA vice president of advertising Mort Goldstrom says. "Ads for concerts and things at clubs, for restaurants and movies -- that's a reason people read."