I’ve been thinking about it for some time, practically from the moment I started the subscription. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is the worst newspaper for a city of its size that I have ever read. Parochial in outlook, weeny in tone, and they cut lines out of the baseball box scores!
So when my latest renewal came with a 10% price increase without a word of notice, reason, or even a, “We’re sorry, but we’re going broke,” well, that was it.
But, y’know, what the hell am I going to do tomorrow morning? For some 40 years, my morning routine is coffee, cigarettes, newspaper. Certainly I could read a book, but the thing with a newspaper is that when I’m done reading it, it’s a signal that it’s time to get ready for work. With a book, I’m probably only going to show up before noon about twice a week.
Do you suppose I’ll be calling them up about 5:30? “You get that paper over here right now! No, I didn’t cancel! That must have been some other raving lunatic!”
I might. I don’t usually get on the computer in the morning unless I have at least 20 minutes to spare after I’m ready to leave. I guess that might change.
My parents, as far back as I could remember, only got the Saturday paper, suited them just fine. (The Winnipeg Free Press is one of the few papers that have its main weekly edition on Saturday, instead of Sunday. Saturday is when its weekly TV guide and colour comics (the Sunday editions) come out (so we get a sneak peak at Sunday’s comics)). One benefit is that it reduced waste, why have a bunch of papers sitting around the house you might not have time to read?
When I moved out on my own for the first time, I continued the tradition here. Then, a few years later, I realized I was only using it for the TV guide and sometimes the comics - I got my news from the TV and Internet, and my comics from online. Didn’t take me long to find a customizable TV guide I could use, so I cut my subscription and haven’t looked back once in the last 5 years or so.
Now my parents recently have been bugged by the Free Press to go to 7 days instead of Saturday only (apparently the paper really doesn’t like Saturday only, as others have been similarly bugged.) Just recently, they canceled their subscription as well.
I only get the Sunday paper, or would only get it if the Cincinnati Enquirer wouldn’t force you to get Thursday-Sunday in order to get Sunday delivery, for the coupons and Sunday ads.
Today, as I read the paper, I realized that I’d read 95% of the articles already on Yahoo.
I still like the Sunday ads, though, to see what’s on sale.
Years and years ago, there was another newspaper that offered daily and weekend subscriptions, the weekend being Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The newspaper tried to rationalize this by saying that many people enjoyed getting more than one paper a week, but didn’t have time to read it on weekdays. I suspect that this was just marketing.
I used to have a couple of paper routes, back when my daughter was an infant. I delivered the afternoon and Sunday editions of the San Antonio Express News. On foot, pushing a stroller, uphill both ways. Not in the snow, though…in the blazing San Antonion heat and humidity.
Remember afternoon editions? My husband and I STILL tend to read the newspaper in the afternoon, rather than in the morning.
We’re pretty fortunate, because we have two newspapers available. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is all right, better than most newspapers…but the Dallas Morning News is much better, and has better coverage of most Fort Worth news than the Startle Gram does. The Fort Worth paper has better ads for Fort Worth, of course, but we don’t have a subscription to it, only to the Morning News. My major complaint is that often the lead story is a sports story. Yep, they lead off with a football win, ABOVE THE FOLD, usually taking up about 3/4 of the front page. This is DESPITE the fact that they have not one, but TWO daily sports sections. Frequently they will have a bonus sports section, as well. Perhaps they could spin off a DMN Sports newspaper, to be delivered daily or three times a week or something.
Newspapers can’t use the same old formulas any more, and most of the new ideas they come up with are really, really bad.
We play chicken a lot with our newspaper at renewal time. Called to see what deal they can make with a week left, etc. A year ago we officially let it lapse, then they finally offered a good deal. (But delivery somehow never stopped.) This year they raised the rate a tiny amount (over the good deal) so we just went with it. You can save a lot of money this way.
I read very little of the paper, but Mrs. FtG loves it. I can see the handwriting on the wall in Hollywood sign sized letters. Charging more for less product.
(We are also evening paper reading people. Which is the main reason I don’t read it much. The news is really old by then. I’ll never understand why morning papers lived and afternoon papers died.)
I just read a letter to the editor where the writer stated “I like your newspaper and will continue to get a subscription until the only newspaper delivered consists of one sheet with the works “see our website for more information on the news” and used car ads on the other side”.
The local paper from the next town over when I was growing up was a useless rag. When my dad decided to finally cancel it, I begged him to let me make the phone call.
ME: “Yes, this is Junior Bus Guy to Be, we’d like to cancel our subscription”
Heh heh. Our small town’s newspaper was run by a husband and wife.
They’re now getting a nasty divorce, and the wife is pulling out.
Everybody just got their yearly renewal notices… and in fine print at the bottom, for the first time ever, a note that “subscription fees are not refundable”. Everyone’s waiting for the husband to skip town.
It is absolutely heart-rendering to see what the St Louis Post-Dispatch has become. The Post used to be a very good, almost great newspaper: great columnists, tons of comics [they picked up a bunch of comics when the Globe-Democrat folded], pretty good sports section and great editorial page. And the paper had a great legacy: published the Pentagon Papers, employed top-flight national correspondents, light-years better than the sensationalist Globe.
But it has all been downhill since the Pulitzer Publishing sold out to Lee Enterprises. Pulitzer picked the absolute perfect time to sell to the geniuses at Lee. Lee was a large regional chain who were supposed to finance the debt service by volume purchase of newsprint, regional ad sales and the inevitable staff cuts.
Unfortunately, as ad sales plummeted and the recession hit- there was no fat left to cut. Famous Bra [the old Famous Barr Dept store chain] used to run pages and pages of ladies undergarment ads daily.
The Post appears to have dodged the death spiral for the moment, and the St Louis Metro area is too big not to have a major daily paper. Not sure what all the idiot teabaggers will have to bitch about if the Post does go under.
I haven’t subscribed to the printed edition in probably 7-8 years. It hurts to see how low the Post has fallen.
All that was well before my time; I’ve only been here for 2 1/2 years. I came from a metro area that is about the same size as St. Louis, and in my time here the Post-Dispatch is not 1/10th the newpaper that the Denver Post is.
I’ve no reason to argue that it was not a great newspaper under Pulitzer, and I won’t. Under Lee, it is the Dayton Daily News, or perhaps the Pueblo Chieftain, or maybe even the Berkshire Eagle. This isn’t Dayton, or Pueblo, or Pittsfield, this is a major city. Lee does not treat the Post-Dispatch as its flagship, which it should be. It’s by far the largest city Lee publishes in. It treats it just the same as it does The Lompoc Record, or the Missoulian, or the Caspar Star-Tribune.
I’ve no idea what Lee thought they were doing when they bought Pulitzer.
It seems the lefty free weekly rag that’s been around since the early 60’s has more news in it than the newspaper now. Plus a whole page of ‘dumb crooks’ stories and actual reviews of movies and plays that actual people go to see and report on. (I miss the personals ads, though, a source of great amusement and WTF for decades.)
Get an smartphone and read all the newspapers you want online. Some you might have to pay for an app, but it’s better than paying for the local from what you are telling me.
I haven’t had a subscription to the Inquirer for a while. On the off chance I buy it at the newsstand, it’s still the same old thing. 70% is wire service crap that I can read anywhere, 10% is a rundown of the latest violent crime in the city and 10% is the sports pages where six different columnists say the same thing about the Phillies, Flyers and Eagles. the remaining 10% is opinion and a small smidgen of local and state news that I can’t get elsewhere. But that isn’t worth the price.
I subscribed to the paper way back when I first moved out on my own, because I thought that’s what grownups did. I have oily skin and moist hands. I ended up covered in ink within a few minutes of picking the thing up and paging through it. I tried again a couple of years ago, because they’re saying the “newer” ink is smudge-free. Bull. I got ink all over me again.
No newspapers for me. I get all my news online, and pick up the Sunday coupon section occasionally from the leftovers at a coffee shop. I might not feel like firing up the computer in the morning - so I usually start my day with the iPhone and local news before I get out of bed.
I never did have a paper subscription, but the papers in Albuquerque are pretty lousy. (And that includes our hipper than thou pseudo situationist free lefty paper.) I’d just scavenge the paper at work or get my news from Yahoo, Google, or the online New York Times.
I quit the Denver Post when, in a fit of Journalistic Supidity, they decided to post my salary. I’m a state employee, and while I relly don’t mind if they know theres an Information Tech level IV making what I make, I have a SEVERE problem when you PUBLISH MY NAME with it.
What’s the big deal?
Whelp, as a part of the security department, we probed the 3rd party contractor they hired to publish the info on a website. It wasn’t secure, and baddies could get other information out of that database. Also, we had folks that had various restraining order situations that didn’t appreciate having their name, salary, and state department employer published.
I saw it as a great invasion of my privacy for little gain that could have been handled MUCH better.