Publisher's Notebook

Newspapers base their success on hustling news and selling ads. (And on selling subscriptions, but this item is about the other two).

News and advertising in a paper don’t always jibe. Take this morning’s Richmond Times-Dispatch as an example.

The Metro section has a story about a U.Va. student charged with murdering his father. The alleged weapon was unusual – a 4-pound bowling pin, a memento of a birthday party.

(If you take a bunch of kids to a bowling alley for a birthday party, the honoree gets a free actual bowling pin. All the kids who attended sign it. We have one somewhere in the garage or the attic).

The bowling-pin murder story jumps to page B-8, where you’ll find the end of the obits and the crime log.

Then turn the page. On B-10, there’s the jump of a story and a big, half-page, four-color ad for … Bowl America. “You can be a star at Bowl America,” the ad says. Get info at www.bowlingparty.com.

Boy, that was close. The T-D’s production team was either very alert or very lucky. You be the judge.