Those of you who love to find our lovingly hand-crafted issues of Tucson Weekly at your local, neighborhood Circle K will notice that you’ll actually have a problem with that starting next week.
- azweeklymagazine.com
- Just what I needed: Information on Scottsdale art shows!
Namely, that Circle K has decided to start carrying this thing you see to the right, instead of our publication, at newsstands.
AZ Weekly is a free, Phoenix-based magazine that covers exactly what you’d expect: Phoenix events. Which, as I’m sure you’re thinking, is exactly what denizens of Southern Arizona can’t get enough of.
Furthermore, as Tucson Weekly editor Dan Gibson mentions in this week’s “Editor’s Note,” AZ Weekly whores out their editorial coverage to the highest bidder—so if you’re looking for objective entertainment coverage, you might want to take their articles with a grain of salt.
So what this means for you, the loyal Tucson Weekly reader, is that it might be just a bit harder for you to get your weekly, dead-tree fix of “Danehy,” “The Skinny” and “Ask a Mexican!” But we’ve got a solution:
Where Can I Get a Tucson Weekly?
Heading to that page will take you to an interactive map we’ve set up to help you find issues of Tucson Weekly at our red boxes all over town — and while you’re there, you may want to consider patronizing some of those establishments for supporting local journalism. It’s a win for everyone involved!
Still, that leaves us the little matter of our issue with Circle K…and honestly, we figure we’re not the only people in town who have issues with the corner store chain.
Thus, if you’ve got beef with Circle K, feel free to Tweet with the #CircleKProblems hashtag. We’ll be doing so throughout the day, for as long as we damn well please.
Let it out, Tucson. We have:
Got 99 @tucsonweekly issues, but Circle K ain’t got none. #CircleKProblems
— Brian Pedersen (@realBJP) March 13, 2013
This article appears in Mar 7-13, 2013.
This infuriates me to no end
Stop by my local Circle K for a copy of the weekly and a doughnut but guess I won’t be anymore.
I set up a petition aimed at Circle K to bring back the Weekly (of course, not sure the puerile response of the hashtag is going to help matters) but anyway… If interested: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/keep-tu…
@Jesse: Thanks for helping with the cause.
I would contact QT as they are cleaner and a better choice all arounf. Circle K is not an AZ company anymore
Dan,
Solution’s simple, but doesn’t include the leftist trick of destroying your competition by character assassination. First, get rid of the commie red banner. Then in your editorials and your articles try to keep your leftist bias in check. Honesty from the middle, understanding both sides is good, simpleton bias isn’t good. Honesty is essential in journalism. In fact, seach out someone to document the other side. Show both sides in each issue. Keep it above board, not with some (obvious) hidden agenda.
Mammey: What hidden agenda? Are we really making an effort to hide anything? I always think it’s comical when people on the right think we have meetings to determine how we’re going to help advance the liberal agenda. We have writers with opinions and perspectives. They largely write about what they want. I try to put together the best/most interesting paper I can each week. It’s not as sinister or complicated as you seem to think it is. We’re nothing if not honest. In fact, to pretend that you don’t have a bias is the least honest position to take in this business.
Feel free not to read though! I bet there’s a thread over at the Daily Caller crying out for your eyeballs.
Holy Christ, a red color scheme now equates to communism? That’s a first.
Mammey, if I wasn’t familiar with your comment history, I’d swear you were trolling us.
Kudos to Circle K. That’s called “voting with your pocketbook”. Hopefully this reduction of outlets and its impact to your circulation won’t escape the eyes of your advertisers. Yeah, keep talking about it…spread the word.
@what: How did Circle K vote with their pocketbook on something THAT IS FREE?
@BJP. Maybe somebody in Phoenix PAID them to remove a local paper, and put a Phoenix advertising sheet in its place? 🙂 I have no evidence of this, but. . . how else could this affect Circle K’s pocketbook?
Yes, AZ Weekly did cut a fat check to be the ‘exclusive’ free paper in their stores. But if you consider the number of people who may have stopped at those stores to get a Weekly and, while there, decided to spend money … that’s a lot of potential lost business for them. And considering we have profiled their Facebook Crimebusters campaign, it’s not as if we’re an enemy of theirs. This was simply a short-sighted moneygrab that won’t end well.
EXACTLY BJP, cause I know I am getting my weekly from SOMEWHERE, and I usually dont run into a store just to grab a free paper, I buy something, so it is #GayCircleK who is missing out.
That AZ Weekly is nothing but ads. Phoenix ads at that. Ain’t nobody in Tucson got time for that.
Circle K is a horrible place to patronize anyways. I am proud to say I haven’t bought anything from this company for several years. Of course I don’t smoke cigarettes, drink coffee or cheap (meaning swill, not inexpensive) beer, which is how most of their insanely overpriced product profit is generated. If I really want to buy a Snickers bar at 3 a.m. (which will not happen either, but…) and be treated as I’m worthless while doing it I’ll go to a QuikTrip and I’ll be rude first hoping to get a similar response. The employees in these stores are not only friendlier, the locations (I’ve been in at least 3 within the last year) are always cleaner and stocked better.
I never have a problem picking up my copy of TW because I work downtown and they’re all over the place. It’s not like the loss of TW at Circle K will be TW’s loss, along with other stupid decisions made by this company (full disclosure: I worked there for 6 years and left because I could no longer handle the incompetence of both the corporate office and upper management) they will be a thing of the past or a rarity along the lines of Quick Mart before most people even realize it.
And believe me…it will be well earned and well deserved.
Dan, your bias is showing. Read your own comments dude. You painted a picture about me that’s biased in the least. If you want only the left (the dwindling class) to read your tripe, continue on as you have been with the rhetoric, but it’s getting pretty thin dude. If you want the thinking part of your potential readers, then you have to move toward the center, and accept that this radical thinking hurts all of us. The Spanish Civil War should have taught us all a lesson not to confuse idealism with the national good. Too radical thought hurts, is dangerous, and has the potential to destroy us all, (besides being lame). My post was for your own good as you lamented in the article that nobody is passionate about your rag. You can turn that around by selecting those on both sides of an issue to give their best, letting the people decide what is right for them. If you choose to continue on your current path, then only those with a card in their wallet will read your stuff. Regards, Mammey
When I need a rag I reach for the Weekly.. guess I’ll have to look elsewhere..oh wait the Phx Rag is now out.. nice!
Kick @$$, Weekly! Love your stream of Tweets all day!
I stop buy Circle K every Thursday just to get the Weekly. Always buy a cup of coffee at least. Guess I will go to the library for my weekly now.
I don’t think this will do much for their Thursday sales.
Mammey, oh Mammey, you are entitled to your opinion of course, but the dwindling class is you (see election of 2012)…Though perhaps not in good ol’ phx…I see the TW as an alternative to the nutjob politics of our state capital where our state politicians expound their extreme bias ALL THE TIME. Yes, next to them, we might all seem a little red.
I get my Tucson Weekly at the library and my visits to the Circle K stop at the redbox kiosks outside so I am unaffected. The peddling plan to replace a LOCAL FREE information newspaper with one that is aimed at activities and advertising of a community 130 miles away is idiotic. If I were boss I would fire the marketers that came up with this idea.
I am a mother of three and I have no problem with a new magazine coming to town that doesn’t have pot, porn or negative journalism in it. I don’t want a magazine in my house with ads for pot, pictures of dildos like the Valentines issue had or a cover about transgenders. I want to explain life to my kids and not have them read it in a magazine when we’re looking through it for fun things to do on the weekends. Plus, I know someone who is advertising with AZ Weekly. One cover will be about Phoenix events and will have Phoenix content and the back cover will be about a Tucson event and have Tucson content in it. How cool for both cities to see what’s going on in the other city.. take a drive down and enjoy what our neighbors are offering. Can’t we all just get along?
@Sam: So, which of the many issues of AZ Weekly that have already been published is that Tucson content you speak of?
Ok, let’s clear some things up the Tucson Weekly isn’t telling you. Circle K did not want them in their stores because of the Adult Classifieds and some articles that were well, disgusting and trashy. Adult classifieds tend to promote child trafficking. I am pretty sure that the Tucson Weekly is well aware of this fact. The AZ Weekly chose not to deal with that and create something that everyone can enjoy. It amazes me that you think the editors of that magazine would be stupid enough to distribute a magazine with just phoenix ads. Really, people I think us Tucsonans have more sense than that. I agree with Sam, the magazine was trashy, but the editors knew that and still printed it anyway, with an editorial saying basically, we know it’s wrong, but we don’t care. Well, now they have some competition and they want to trash talk them. I’ve met the gentleman that is the editor of the AZ Weekly, and not once did he say anything bad about the Tucson Weekly. I like how the Tucson Weekly talks about the AZ Weekly whoring themselves out, Tucson Weekly, you let places that promote prostitution but ads in your paper, so let’s get real. The editors of this magazine did whatever they hell they wanted to thinking that they could get away with it, and now they get to see that they can’t just do whatever they like. I loved the Tucson Weekly, until I saw that same Valentines issue that Sam did. And, really people let’s think of the big picture with Circle K, It’s a gas station for christ sake, they don’t want to have an image that says to its customer, We don’t mind offering you a free paper where you can find a night walker or see a picture of a dildo and then have to explain to you ten year old what it is. Be real people the Tucson Weekly shoot themselves in the foot.
@Sam Kaye – Because PHX sucks!!!!!
Burnie, I believe the magazine first comes out in Tucson next week. I agree with Courtney. Do you really think they would put out a magazine of just Phoenix content? How silly. I’ve been to Phoenix many times and it does not suck. I love Tucson but it’s always fun to drive to Phoenix and do some things that we don’t have here.
Still wondering if someone can show me the Tucson content in the Arizona Weekly. Gone through 17 issues now, furthest south was Gila River Casino. That’s like, maybe, northern Tucson?
Courtney, I agree that the sex issue was inappropriate for children. I’m sure many parents withheld it, and it’s possible, although I don’t know whether it happened, that some store managers in the Circle K network may have chosen to keep it under the counter or otherwise obscure it unless people requested it. What Circle K is doing is perfectly legal and within their rights as a corporation — perhaps even with in their obligation to shareholders to maximize wealth. As a Tucson Weekly employee and long-time community activist, though, I am offended by their small-mindedness, and their choice to sell out Tucsonans for a few coins. With respect to your concern for children, I think it would be fair also for you to explain that as a member of the communications team for Yellow Cab, per your LinkedIn profile, you might benefit from the transaction. I understand that Yellow Cab scored the distribution deal under the new plan to stock AZ Weekly into Circle K. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but please also disclose whether and how your employer benefits from this transaction. I’m sure that the economic considerations won’t affect your point of view about Tucson Weekly’s content. However I think that readers are entitled to know what may have motivated you to post here so favorably about the change. I’m guessing it was even your job to do so, as a communications specialist for Yellow Cab.
Courtney: Funny thing…we asked Circle K if they would continue to carry the Weekly if we pulled all of our adult content. The representative answered that they had signed a superior deal with AZ Weekly, so the adult content was actually a red herring (which makes sense since Circle K sells pornography behind the counter and tattoo and low-rider magazines out front).
The Weekly has never been a magazine for ten year olds, but then again, neither are a lot of things you can get at Circle K. Somehow I manage to keep all of those things out of the hands of my own children. Parenting for the win!
Feel free to plug AZ Weekly elsewhere, I’d rather stay on the side of the paper that doesn’t sell editorial space to its advertisers.
Good catch on Courtney guys! But isn’t this a discussion about apples and oranges? The Weekly is a real Tucson newspaper with well researched articles and, nearly always, interesting and thought provoking editorials.
I haven’t seen one yet, but isn’t the AZ Weekly an ad publication that pays it’s bills by being a source for entertainment information? It doesn’t seem to me that the AZ Weekly is any substitute for the Tucson Weekly. Ideally, for everyone involved, Circle K would give shelf room to both of them.
Circle K carries the Star and the Republic and USA Today, all of which contain questionable material judging by the online comments.
@sonoranwinds you are so right. and not one of them contains detailed information about everything going on in Tucson and how to be part of it.
Waiting for the next burst of libelous misinformation from Courtney’s Facebook friend, Queenie.
Circle K is obviously a communist organization, since it has a red banner, so I prefer to pick my news up somewhere else. But Benson is the closest town and only Circle K stocks the Weekly. I hope an alternative can be found for me. And I hope I don’t have to go to Wal-Mart for my paper. At least, at Circle K, I can pretend I was buying something.
I used to buy a coffee refill daily and get the TW on Thursday. I just bought enough instant coffee to last until Circle K management realizes they are losing about $300 a year and that local Phoenix issues will never be of more interest than our local topics. I have a feeling Starbucks may be able to capitalize here. Someone in corporate needs to understand the difference in viewing the picture of a dildo, and being the picture of a dildo.
Wait, whats wrong with prostitution again?
Isn’t the real issue that a mother of three lets her kids read the Weekly? There’s trashy ads in there!
Also, I don’t give a shit about your children.
I hate to admit, but scumbaggy circle K and their antics has made it harder to get the dad tree edition.. But I have managed.
BJP – Now you have your answer.
@ Burnie Mak–sometimes there is human trafficking involved. It’s not all “Milk Money” and “Pretty Woman.”