The Glade 4.0

Our two local newspapers online used to be free...the one in the town next to us still is but the one in our city started charging about 6 months ago. You can view a handful of stories per month and then you are not allowed to see anything but the classifieds unless you purchase a subscription.
Viewers and comments have dropped exponentially. Used to be we had a community forum and there would be 30-40 comments on any given news story...got to see inside info from people in the know and differences of opinion from diverse populations.
Now, the most commented-on articles have only 2 comments, 3 at the most.

Totally sucks.

I thought the ad revenue was supposed to pay for the paper online??

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

PS--In case it wasn't obvious, most people these days in our area cannot afford a newspaper subscription on top of all their other bills, or they choose not to budget for one in lieu of something else.
Charging for the newspaper online is taking away a community forum.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Since 90% of the content in my local papers is crap they pull down and copy/paste from the AP I can't say I would get a subscription or view it online.

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Yeah, ours is almost entirely local news...we have a LOT of drama for a small city...there are robberies and gunshots and fist-fights with the mayor every week, hahaha!
I can go to other sources for regular news but not local stuff.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

All those stories gotta be written and edited by people employed by the paper. Newspapers do make money from ads...but they also make money from subscriptions. Problem is, ad revenue is down because subscription rates are down...because people are going online for free news. Many "newspapers" don't even exist anymore as actual papers...they only publish online because actually printing on paper doesn't make them any money.

Free content online is killing the demand for printed media like magazines and newspapers. Free online content is so ingrained to condumers that most publishers are trying to find a new business model in order to maintain profitability. So you see some, like your hometown paper, that are trying to charge subscription fees for their online versions.

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Women are from Hoboken, men are from Trenton. ~ Jimmy Kimmel

Yeah, that is pretty much what the Editor tried to explain to everyone when they started this a few months ago...younger generations aren't buying papers at all and more and more people are switching to getting their news online.
It just sucks because for a brief window there we were getting the news online for free AND there was a public forum in the comments section and we were getting to see sides of stories we would have never otherwise heard....now thats gone and you can pay every month to read a few local pieces but no one comments anymore because no one is there...no one wants to pay for it so they would rather just do without.
I've read a few articles on suggestions for a new business model for newspapers, but haven't seen anything yet that would enable them to make money other than advertisements or pay walls.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

That's what several now-defunct web content publishers thought, too.

The Internet is waking up to realize that ad-revenue isn't a magic money faucet.

And, whoa! I thought Elmo lived in Pennsylvania.. there are gunshots at your mayor every week in your town?

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Given that my local online paper is the LA Times, yeah, it's pretty much all free.

Of course, I actually also subscribe. Four days a week. They are so desperate to increase their circulation that they called me last month to offer the other three days of the week for free, for a month "as a way of saying thank you."

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

People will subscribe to printed newspapers until e-readers are so advanced that they are light, flimsy, and bendable. The "user interface" of normal paper, so to speak, is actually pretty good.

Hahahahahaha!

No its the thugs that are shooting each other and stabbing their girlfriends with scissors (yesterday's top story)....its the mayor and the councilmen getting into fistfights with each other during town hall meetings. (News a couple months ago.)

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

News...pa-per?

One of our two main newspapers recently went online only.

So far, neither has a pay wall, although one of them (Seattle Times) put up a 'register to continue' wall after a certain number of clicks.

After realizing that a large percentage of their readers navigated away after being confronted with the dialog box, they took it down.

It's too bad they can't find another way to support the local paper. You can go online and get world and national news, but the local stories are interesting because they are relevent for you. Especially when they saw the type of involvement that your paper had, Kate, too bad to take that away. Wonder how other bigger news organizations do it, sell Ads and cut staff to a minimum, since online wouldn't require that many employees?

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Dream as if you'll live forever...
...Live as if you'll die tomorrow

Vivere Senza Rimpianti

There is always a strong market demand for local stories, so they will be available through some medium, even if local papers die off in the short run due to ineffective monetary models.

No and Yes. Our Local Newspaper has some but not all if its content on its website for free

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Find your local public radio or public TV site.

But basically, you're asking to have your cake and eat it too.

I'm a woman. It's what we do.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

No mayors here. I think the closest one is Nutter if Philly. Or Sweaty Eddie Rendell, since he acts more like a mayor of Philly/Pitt rather then the Gov. Thank god he's outta here.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

And yeah if I was shooting people I'd have the decency to put a two liter soda bottle over the end. No need to disturb honest citizens with trash removal.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

MYSOGENY!!!!

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Back to the original question...

My hometown newspaper, online version, apparently lets you read the first paragraph or two of a story, but you need to $ubscribe to view more. Especially annoying since it has become not much more than an AP news feed except for local sports and one or two stories a day. Also used to be a daily and now takes Mondays off.

We can view 10 stories a month on ours before having to pay $8 a month for a subscription. I just started using different browsers, hahaha! Skim the first paragraph on the news page and only click on the ones I read...with several different browsers I think I've found my loophole.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

for only 8 bucks a month... that is a decent price. May be worth investing the money. /shrug

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

If switching browsers is working for you, LK, you could also try clearing your cookies.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I know but I hate doing that, hahaha! I like to keep them until I absolutely have to clean them out.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth