GMAT Essays (AWA)

Essay Topic: The following appeared in an announcement issued by the publisher of The Mercury, a weekly newspaper:
"Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago, The Mercury's circulation has declined by 10,000 readers. The best way to get more people to read The Mercury is to reduce its price below that of The Bugle, at least until circulation increases to former levels. The increased circulation of The Mercury will attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper."

My Response:

Since last five years, The Mercury has seen a considerable decrease in the number of its readers. The Bugle, a comparatively cheaper newspaper that emerged five years ago, outnumbered the circulation of The Mercury. The author of this argument claims that lowering the price of The Mercury than that of The Bugle, until Mercury revive the number of readers that it used to have five years before would help it to eventually increase the total number of readers. He also specifically mentions that by upturning its circulation, Mercury will draw more businesses to buy advertising spaces in the paper. The author's argument is not based on a promising fact. Hence, he has failed to connect his argument together with logical reasoning and convince the reader that Mercury will regain its readers merely by reducing its price.

Firstly, as we all know that there are seven basic sections or pages an "ideal" newspaper should consist of, such as, main page which has the Headlines, editorial, sports, business, agriculture, classified ads, obituary, lifestyle section, fun and entertainment and a students' section as well, in the same order. Although a comparatively hefty priced newspaper, The Mercury is infamous for its unappealing Headlines section. Many reasons contribute to this fact, for example, a lot of times, many of its readers have reported that the latest news, were actually not up to date, which is certainly not acceptable as the Mercury being the so called local well known daily. Furthermore, most of the headlines do not have complete stories behind them. The Bugle, on the other hand, provides well covered Headlines and latest happenings as far as possible and this makes it favorite among its readers.

A major flaw in the Mercury is its unnecessary stress on the entertainment and celebrities' news which is least important when there is something else happening in the country that seeks serious National importance. To cite an example, when the deadly Hurricane attacked the entire Mid-Atlantic States in 2012, all the other newspapers and media were mostly concentrating on this news, whereas The Mercury did not seem to pay much heed either to cover the news and the latest status of destruction, life loss etc. and providing helping hands to the victims. On the contrary, it focused more on the personal life of a celebrated Businessman who then was a victim of a bad divorce. Such unexpected and irresponsible behavior from a highly reputed newspaper had disappointed almost all its readers.

Another problem area of The Mercury is its Editorial Section which has been visibly downgrading since last five years. Not only the authors who are contributing to this particular section have really inappreciable vocabulary, but also they are hardly able to come up with quality editorials with relevant content. Clearly The Mercury is barely paying any attention to this section.
Besides being a comparatively newer daily, The Bugle has its well-maintained Headlines page, correct cover of relevant and up to date news and also an impressive Editorial section. In short The Bugle has almost all the qualities of an ideal daily but in a really competitive price.

Although The Mercury had innumerable readers five years back, it is pretty clear that its readers certainly did not have much better alternative so as to reject The Mercury. To conclude, if The Mercury wants to truly regain its number of readers, it will have to take a serious look at all its flaws and work towards betterment of its quality. The author of this argument overlooks all the shortcomings mentioned above and hence, makes a baseless assumption that mere reduction of its price will help The Mercury get back its readers.

Thanks so Much Brian for your comments !
If you could tell me the shortcomings too, it would be really very helpful and I can take care of those next time. Also, I would be posting a couple of more essays in the next few days and would message you as well. Thanks again !
And, yes I am trying to get the other posts removed. I am still searching for the option to delete those. Multiple posts are created because I clicked on "Submit" quite a couple of times.