State of local newspapers

[Dawg52]

I haven't been a paid subscriber for years. I'm surprised our local paper is still going. Our largest paper in Jackson, MS recently ran a promo for their online version for just $10 for the first year. Normally cost that per month. I signed up and I admit, it's pretty good. It even includes USA Today. But when the promo runs out.....I'll opted out.

 

[Chuckanut]

In my paper's heyday it had three suburban bureaus in outlying counties, each staffed with about half a dozen reporters. That's all gone now.

A number of years ago an online concern attempted to duplicate that level of community journalism. It was called Patch.com. A few vestiges of it still exist.

What has replaced the former bureaus in my area is online blogs. There are several operated by concerned citizens that will bring things to light such as - "Developer sues city to build 15 story office park next to elementary school" and "Local dogs finally have their park" and "Parents complain about brewery near daycare center".

FWIW, the local Big City paper also prints lots of advertising flyers that get stuffed into my mailbox and they seem to print and deliver the WSJ in my area. So, I have to assume they are still making money.

 

[Badger]

I gave up on the local paper many years ago. There use to be 2 papers (one in the morning and one in the evening) a looooong time ago with different names but owned, run and printed by the same people. They started going downhill a couple of decades ago. As many have posted the quality has diminished in too many ways to name. I only keep up with the paper on Sat when a few of us broadcast a 2 hour radio show for the sight impaired on the local PBS station. The local articles are often full of grammatical errors and difficult to read due to poor sentence structure etc. The majority of the news is via wire service that you can get from other media sources. The only news sources that are worse are the local TV news programs. Now there is a useless source of "news" fluff where the announcements for the upcoming news stories make up the entire report.

Cheers!

 

[travelover]

..........It just amazes me that people don't take the time to follow, or at least understand, what's going on in their own political back yard.

Worse, in my area one party dominates, so these decisions are made in the primaries when only about 20% of those eligible vote. So, a small minority makes the decisions.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Worse, in my area one party dominates, so these decisions are made in the primaries when only about 20% of those eligible vote. So, a small minority makes the decisions.

^Same thing here. Our county commission chairman was up for re-election and it turned out to be quite the race (he did some back door dealing to get the Atlanta Braves to move out of the city and into our county). Even though EVERYONE was talking about the race, only 9% turned out for the primary run-off, which in essence IS the election (the winner will run unopposed in November). Folks really don't understand that their local officials can impact their lives MUCH more so than the national election.

 

[ponyboy]

We need to take a stand that local newspapers keep being printed. Whats next...kids will no longer know how to write in cursive? Oh the horror!

 

[Marita40]

We have two local papers--one Minneapolis, one St. Paul. The St. Paul is good for small town-ish stuff; the Mpls (IMHO) for world, national, arts, etc. Both serve their purposes.

I still relish Sunday mornings lounging with the paper (even if a lot of it is ads), as we did with the Tribune when I was coming up in Chicago-land.

 

[travelover]

We need to take a stand that local newspapers keep being printed. Whats next...kids will no longer know how to write in cursive? Oh the horror!

The horror is that without real journalism, a critical part of the check and balance system is missing. Your local (or state or national) politicians can get away with all kinds of corruption and you will never know it. That is a big deal to me, because if journalists don't do it I don't know who else will.

 

[explanade]

I just checked some subscription prices.

NY Times Basic digital is $3.75 a week or over $200 a year.

LA Times is more, like $4-5 a week.

SJ Mercury News is $2.50 a week.

I would have done $50-60 a year but I don't know, this is more or less to help keep those papers running because I wouldn't have the time to read enough of them on a daily or even monthly basis.

 

[Henry Lili]

Not so much to do with journalism as with the process of putting out the product, my local paper is at times very poorly thrown together. It seems like there is no proof reader or editor looking over the articles or even pages before it goes to print.

Sometimes an article ends in the middle of a sentence like it was supposed to be continued on another page. Other times, the articles continue on other pages but are totally non sequitur, not even the same article. And the spelling and grammar are often atrocious.

Occasionally, the same article is printed twice in different places in the same edition and other times the same article appears again the next day. I guess it doesn't matter that much since it is 80% ads anyway.

Plus 1. My local screws up multiple times a week. Sad state.

Sent from my LGL34C using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

 

[Bestwifeever]

I just checked some subscription prices.

NY Times Basic digital is $3.75 a week or over $200 a year.

LA Times is more, like $4-5 a week.

SJ Mercury News is $2.50 a week.

I would have done $50-60 a year but I don't know, this is more or less to help keep those papers running because I wouldn't have the time to read enough of them on a daily or even monthly basis.

The LA Times sounds high--my Chicago Tribune online is $10 a month including delivery of a print edition of the Sunday paper (they like to get those Sunday ads into your house). I think that's reasonable for all that content (plus all online coverage) plus access to the archives going back to forever, but you should call if you care and suggest a $60/year deal--they might jump at it.