I got a notice with my newspaper today that the Standard Times will restrict access to the content on their website, SouthCoast Today.com, to subscribers starting on January 12th. Actually they will eventually charge even their print subscribers a small fee, 39 cents a week, to view the content. It has been my practice to link to news stories on the Standard Times website. I will discontinue that practice once the site becomes subscriber only.
Print newspapers are having a tough time ...
... right now and papers, large and small, are going out of business. There are many reasons for that and I won't go into the whole discussion.
I have my doubts about the choice being made by the Standard Times but it is their content and they have every right to make it a subscriber only feature.
I will continue to have a link on my blog to the Standard Times site but you will need to have a login to access information.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Standard Times website going subscriber only
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10 comments:
I have been wondering for awhile why they haven't done this sooner. Hopefully their online subscription rates pass some of the savings of eliminating printing and delivering hard copy on to the consumer.
The S-T is not perfect but I think they are pretty fair in their reporting. Although if you think a certain aspect of their journalism is unfair and detrimental to the community, then give them a taste of medicine, you may never be forgiven. Right Curt?
Charging for online content is their death knell.the content is available for free from too many sources and their stories aren't broad enough to charge. they deliver the news, usually little late but that's the nature of newspapers. if they went to a constantly updated every 15-30 minutes format then I can see charging but to get a electronic copy of a newspaper story from yesterday?
The Standard Times does do a great job reporting news stories in an fair equitable means . In other words a 50 - 50 both sides of the story .
The newspaper does have a right to its own opinion as all newspapers do today -
The opinion section of the s-t has done a poor job by showing the public in the past few years only the positive side of the wind turbine story. Any good news item about wind turbines anywhere in the world is placed in the newspaper as "puff" news stories or "little goodie two shoes news items"
Try and go back two or three years and try and find any negative news like wind turbine accidents ,illness,ice throw etc .
It's just not there - The downfall of the newspapers is the lack of investagative journalism.
I have to agree that trying to charge for online content is the death knell. Even CNN couldn’t pull it off.. a local newspaper with a limited reader base to begin with? This strategy will just drive away any online readership they may have had.
That paper lost me as on online reader when they eliminated the comments section on everything, including BLOGS.
Na Na Na Na -- Na Na Na Na -- Hey Hey Good bye.
Another one Bites the Dust
They eliminated blog comments because of the nasty people. They decided that it was detrimental to the community because it hindered qualified people from coming forward to serve. Certain bitter, angry people who weren't willing to do the work of being properly informed, were resorting to the only thing they were capable of, nasty personal attacks.
Elmer, it is the job of moderators to review those comments and not allow them to be posted.
To eliminate all the voices goes against the very premise of a free press.
Hire a qualified person to review comments prior to them being posted or lose every reader like me.
No negative personal attack blogging should be allowed, unless the author identifies himself/herself.
That would end almost all of it seeing that most people find their courage behind anonymity
Comments have returned on everything under the new model, which also allows viewership of 10 stories/month free upon registering.
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