Every few months the two New York City tabloids go at it like little girls in a schoolyard fight-- lots of hissing and scratching over something really silly. In this case, The Post is accusing The Daily News about lying about it's $1 million giveaway. This is actually a followup to their coverage of the Daily News Disaster last year, when the paper accidently printed FOUR HUNDRED winning tickets for a similar giveaway. Anyway, here's what the Post said:
"Will you find a $1 million card in this paper?" the headline blared last Sunday.
The answer is unequivocally "NO" - and the brass at the Daily News knows it full well.
But only a reader who gets to the fine print of the contest rules learns there is only "one [$1 million] prize available during the five-week period of Week 1 through Week 5."
And in Week 2 of the game (March 5-11) Donna Murphy of Queens won the million-dollar booty - actually a $25,000 annuity paid out over a whopping 40 years, with a present value of only $460,000.
That means the next million-dollar prize won't be available until Week 6 - starting April 2.
Shocker: reading the Daily News is unlikely to make you rich! Then again, burned once, shame on them, burned twice, shame on you. If you're buying the Daily News as an investment strategy, you probably deserve what you get. And in a completely and totally unrelated story, the Post is offering a $6 million dollar scratch-off this week. Meow!
While we're on the topic of newspapers: the Times got caught in another sloppy reporting scandal-- apparently they published a sob-story about a Katrina victim, who later turned out to be a con-artist.
