Well, this being the 24th edition since we purchased and remade the San Diego Metropolitan, it seems a good time to talk about our progress and what’s going to happen next, God willing.
    First of all, to the tens of thousands of readers and hundreds of advertisers who make it possible, "thank you" isn’t enough. Our gratitude is expressed in continued hard work, an unyielding effort to bring you the highest value you've ever experienced in a local publication, intellectually and commercially.
    Our emotions are mixed. We’re excited to do what we do almost everyday, we’re grateful, and yet we’re running harder than we ever imagined before we evolved from journalist-employees to journalist-owners. Being a business owner is not all it’s cracked up to be, not when a profit is so hard-won against a competitor — we’re talking primarily about the Business Journal — that continues a pattern of aggressively overselling more than it delivers. This pattern of overselling primarily benefits a federal criminal in Kansas City who owns the Business Journal, Larry Bridges, Ted Owen's boss. Owen is given the title of president and publisher of the Business Journal — and now chairman of the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau — but he's just Bridges' senior employee.
    If a prominent San Diegan had pleaded guilty to a crime against the federal government, his top employee wouldn't be named to head ConVis, would he?
    But incredibly, Ted Owen, Larry Bridges' lieutenant, holds himself up as a moral example, bestowing advice to San Diego City Council members and promoting the "Multicultural Heritage" and "Best Practices" awards with prominent advertisers while not disclosing to them who owns the Business Journal and what his civic record and business ethics really are.
    Were these "Best Practices" cosponsors advised that the owner of the Business Journal was indicted and pleaded guilty to falsely certifying bids to the federal government and is banned from doing business with the United States of America?
    Of course not.
    When these advertisers were told they'd get a total circulation of 17,500 or 22,000, were they also told that the Business Journal's last published Annual Statement of Circulation, signed under penalty of perjury, gave its total average distribution at less than 14,900, a 17.4% to 47.6 percent disparity? Were they told the Business Journal had been terminated by its circulation auditor?
    Of course not.
    Were they told that a significant portion of its circulation was not paid by the recipient?
    Probably not.
    Rather than obfuscating ownership and questionable business practices, we prefer to spend our energy on real, quality journalism, business news from San Diego’s most experienced business journalists and insights from San Diego’s most respected civic affairs writers, from retired City Attorney John Witt to former SDSU President Brage Golding, from business author Janet Lowe to Pulitzer Prize nominee Lynne Carrier, from Denise Carabet to John Lamb, Woody Lockwood, Sandy Goodkin, Gary London, Alan Nevin, Dirk Sutro, Pam Wilson and their colleagues.
    We spend a lot of money getting our publication — and advertisers' messages — on the desks and nightstands of the right people. It is paid for and it ain't cheap.
    Please note:
    The San Diego Metropolitan Magazine & Daily Business Report is delivered by written request as a benefit of paid membership to every single member of the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce, every member of the Carlsbad, Escondido and Rancho Bernardo Chambers of Commerce, every member of the Downtown Partnership and Port Tenants Association, and every member of the Building Industry Association of San Diego County. We also deliver to the top two executives of nearly every San Diego member of UCSD Connect, the top two executives of nearly every publicly traded corporation and bank based in San Diego County, and every client of Accion San Diego, a micro-business lender.
    And that’s only part of the delivery of San Diego Metropolitan, which, by the way, is audited now by the world's largest and most respected specialty auditor of business and trade publications, BPA International. An average of 50,697 copies, that’s what BPA came up with, and 87 percent of it was determined to be "qualified" circulation. The remainder is "non-qualified." Even "proof of distribution was verified for copies reported as bulk," says BPA. Audited. It costs money to be audited. It takes time to develop the correct and reliable systems to be audited. It’s a pain to be audited, but it’s the responsible way to run a publication, and to sell and buy advertising.
    Now we only listed a portion of our circulation above. In addition to paid and requested delivery, we’re the only business publication or consumer magazine that delivers door to door in most of the major office buildings in Downtown, Mission Valley and the Golden Triangle. We’re talking about a good service here.
    And our ad rates are still cheaper than our competitors'. And our paper is heavier and brighter.
    So you can understand why we’re still sort of annoyed when we have worked so hard to turn this publication around, have enjoyed some good measures of success — including the top awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for excellence and community service last year and for magazine design this year — and still too many advertisers get sucked into the marketing web of the man from Kansas City.
    To help guide our mission, we’re pleased to announce the promotion of Jack Austin Lane from director of business development to associate publisher of the San Diego Metropolitan Magazine & Daily Business Report. A former publisher of the San Diego Business Journal when it was a Scripps Howard newspaper — before the Kansas City guy bought and changed the paper — Lane has served the Metropolitan's advertisers for more than a year and brings to the table an advocacy and marketing savvy on behalf of the Metropolitan's advertisers that is unmatched in San Diego. He doesn’t sell ads. He counsels clients in the development of inexpensive marketing strategies. And he's a charming conversationalist at 233-4060, Ext. 315.
    We’re also pleased to have assembled a highly experienced team of advertising executives, including Vic Asselin, a veteran representative for Fortune, Better Homes & Gardens, International Herald Tribune and Readers Digest products; William Carpenter, who learned the lay of the San Diego land through his years at the Transcript; Sean Kelly, a sales and marketing whiz kid who opened five urban markets for For Rent magazine; executive assistant Lila Behr, an attorney (and wife of the former city councilman); and Joshua Holmes, who provides logistical support to advertisers when he's not bench-pressing 235. We are all at your service.
    In October, Metropolitan Editor Tim McClain, who has been honored with an Alonzo Award from the Downtown Partnership for his editorial attention to the Centre City, will oversee an extraordinary special section called "San Diego 92101," bringing together the best business journalists to help readers understand why 75,000 people work and play in Downtown everyday, making it the most intensely active few square miles south of Downtown Los Angeles. This is, frankly, a response to the Union-Tribune's and Business Journal's intentions to play on Downtown business people’s vanity by producing their own sections written by publicists. To discourage them and prove to the market once again where the quality is being produced, we’ll do it better and make it journalistically driven, saturating the local business communities while putting reprints in the hands of thousands of executives nationwide. "San Diego 92101" will complement such long-standing features on our October calendar as "Office Leasing Techniques" and "High-Tech in the Workplace."
    Your advertising participation is welcomed. Your readership is an honor. Our competition is our problem. But if you think it’s important for San Diegans to produce a high-quality, locally owned and locally managed business publication, your support is greatly appreciated. Thank you.