Vice President of Circulation Aaron Kotarek writes a letter to the President of ProPublica, Richard Tofel, taking issue with Tofel's recent article about declining print newspaper circulation. Kotarek argues that Tofel's comparisons of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser's print circulation over time used inconsistent date ranges and audience categories, distorting the actual picture of changes. Kotarek urges Tofel to consult circulation executives and industry groups like the Alliance for Audited Media for accurate metrics in the future when analyzing newspaper audiences.

1. Aaron J. Kotarek
Vice President, Circulation
500 Ala Moana Boulevard, Suite 7-500 | Honolulu, HI 96813
808.529.4700 | fax 808.529.4898 | staradvertiser.com
January 26, 2016
Richard Tofel, President
ProPublica
155 Avenue of the Americas
13th Floor
New York, N.Y. 10013
Mr. Tofel,
My name is Aaron Kotarek and I am the Vice President of Circulation at Oahu
Publications Inc., the parent company of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser,
staradvertiser.com, and a host of other publications in the State of Hawaii.
I am writing to you in response to your recently published article/blog titled, “The Sky
is Falling on Print Newspapers Faster Than You Think”, dated January 21, 2016.
My first comment is on the title of your piece. Print newspapers? Did you mean to
imply print, digital, custom publishing, niche, magazine, direct marketing media
organizations? Our product and services portfolio, like most other media
organizations nationwide, are much more diverse and multifaceted than you give us
credit for.
I also am extremely disturbed by your “apples to oranges” methods of comparing
print audiences.
First off, I strongly suggest when comparing audiences to use the same date
range(s). In your article you compared circulation volumes from a 6 month March
ended Publisher’s Statement to a 3 month September ended quarterly filing.
Secondly, when executing a volume comparison ensure to use exact Alliance for
Audited Media (AAM) categories. You compared the Total Average Paid & Verified
Circulation-Print category (March 2013) in your article with volumes in the Total
Average Individually Paid Circulation category (September 2015).
In the case of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser you completely misrepresent our
volumes in your comparison. In the March 2013 volumes you chose to include
categories such as home delivery (individually paid & verified), single copy, hotel
distribution, educational copies, retail/business copies and employee/contractor
copies. Then in the September 2015 volumes you chose to exclude qualified home
delivered copies, educational and university copies, hotel distribution,

2. employee/contractor copies and retail/business copies. Please refer to the PDF
attachment for a detailed illustration of your inclusions and exclusions.
This type of comparison was not well thought out and quite frankly it was
irresponsible on your part. You completely distorted and convoluted the picture of
our audience over the last three years. Has our core print volume slightly dropped
over the past three years? Yes it has although our loss over that time frame is at a
smaller decline percentage than the industry standard for properties in our major
metro circulation classification. Our daily print volume currently resides at 116,000,
but you showed us at 94,000. That represents a 22,000 copy discrepancy using
your methodology.
What type of inaccurate message does this portray to our readers, advertisers, and
business partners? Now instead of investing time and energy growing our
audiences we have to step back and reeducate and reassure the aforementioned
parties due to your inattention.
When comparing media company audiences in the future I suggest reaching out to
audience executives of the publication’s audiences you are calculating and/or
comparing. Also, you should consider reaching out to Ken Shultz, SVP of Audit
Services at the Alliance of Audited Media (AAM) for guidance.
Within our industry we measure total audience. While the print category is an
important segment of total audience, I urge you moving forward not to discount
audiences in other categories.
My objective is to grow a wide range of audiences: print AND digital, digital replica
AND digital non-replica, Paid AND Qualified, Core product AND affiliated product,
niche AND alternative products, etc.
Lastly, with your executive legacy publishing experience at Dow Jones & Company
and the Wall Street Journal I believe you should comprehend media company
audience metrics and how they are compiled and derived. Now as President of an
online only, non-profit, investigative journalism organization it makes me wonder if
you had an agenda in publishing imprecise print only volumes of some of our
nation’s oldest and most respected media organizations.
Thanks for your time and consideration, and if you would like to discuss any of these
topics further, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.
Regards,
Aaron J. Kotarek
Aaron J. Kotarek
Vice President, Circulation
CC:
Ken Shultz, Alliance for Audited Media (AAM)
Dennis Francis, President & Publisher
J. David Kennedy, Chief Revenue Officer