We are the best. Period.
You can say that again
The Hamilton Spectator is the best newspaper in the world. Period.
This is not just my opinion; it is fact. I know it because many readers tell me regularly. They read every word of The Spectator and only The Spectator and they love it. Perhaps you are one of them.
Or perhaps it has just occurred to you now: “You’re right, I’d never thought of it, but The Spectator is the greatest newspaper in the world.”
There will be those among you, of course, who say “you’ve got to be kidding. The Wall Street Journal is the best newspaper. Or the Toronto Star.”
Or the New York Times or the Guardian or El Pais or the Times of India or the Jerusalem Post or the National Enquirer.
Perhaps these people simply need to be reminded more often that The Hamilton Spectator is. the. Best. Newspaper. EVER. We have the best news, the top news. Believe me.
Generally, we let people make their own minds up about this, but maybe we should declare it every day on the front page: “the greatest newspaper in the world” instead of “connected to your community.”
If history is any indication, the more we tell people things, the more they will believe it. This has been true throughout human history, but it somehow seems to be getting worse (or better).
After all, how is it that a restaurant can advertise “the best burgers in town” when they are clearly not. Their buns are stale, their meat is frozen, and there are no pickles.
It’s called marketing, and marketing works.
Marketing transformed diamonds from useless rocks into valuable jewelry. Marketing makes people pay several thousand dollars for a designer purse when you can get one at your local department store for a few hundred.
If you say something simple and repeat it enough, people will believe you, regardless of actual fact.
Not only will they believe you, they’ll also repeat it, and people will believe them. And the next thing you know, everyone thinks Coke is better than Pepsi, or vice versa.
It works even better in politics. Let’s say you are a politician, and make the preposterous assertion that you got more votes than anyone anywhere ever, and that your crowds are the biggest in world history, and that you are smart.
Even if such claims are patently, provably, demonstrably and obviously false, all you have to do is keep repeating them, just like saying you serve the “best hamburgers in town.”
The only real problem is the media. Journalists may ask you for proof, they may ask troublesome questions, and they may have some actual facts to counter your claims.
But if you are a shrewd politician, you simply attack the journalists, over and over again, and insist they are lying liars who lie, and that you are smart and got the most votes.
Some disciplined consumers of news may see you for what you are, but many others apparently, will somehow simply remember what you keep repeating: you are smart and rich and journalists are liars.