That may be a question readers of such area newspapers as The Carthage Press, Neosho Daily News, as well as the many other newspapers GateHouse has in the Show-Me State will soon have to decide for themselves.
Various GateHouse newspapers across the country have been moving to the pay for content model recently and Boonville has announced it will introduce its pay system Monday:
"The Boonville Daily News offers a more robust online news report than ever before, as do all of our community newspapers," said Brad Dennison, GateHouse Media Vice President of News and Interactive. "We are serious about creating a model that sustains the important service and journalism we offer to our communities, and we think this is a very fair way to accomplish that."
Visitors to Boonvilledailynews.com will get unlimited access to the website's homepage, breaking news, obituaries, weather, blogs and multimedia offerings.
Most articles on the website, including columns, editorials, letters to the editor, in-depth sport stories and political coverage, will fall into a premium category.
After reading 12 premium articles, readers will be asked to pay a monthly subscription to gain unlimited access to the site.
The payment plan was laid out in the article:
Five-day home delivery subscribers will be able to get full access to the website for $1.49 a month. Others can get full access to Boonvilledailynews.com for $4.99 a month or $49.95 a year.
Subscribers who pay 12 months in advance can sign up for the price of $14.95.
While it seems clear that GateHouse has planning on moving all of it properties to this model, it is not so clear whether it will work and poses some questions as far as the local newspapers are concerned.
-Can this system bring any more than a trickle of cash into the coffers of newspapers like The Press, the Daily, and the Pittsburg Morning Sun? None of those papers have the kind of dynamic columnists or extensive political coverage that could open up readers' checkbooks. Sports would also seem to be out of the question. While the newspapers do offer some solid sports coverage, they are so short on manpower (the same problem for regular news coverage) that there is no way they can produce the copious amount of content it would take to make it worthwhile to subscribe online.
-One way it could possibly work would be blanket coverage of important local news stories, including investigative reporting. The Neosho Daily News, in particular, has made a name for itself in recent years with extensive reporting on some major stories, including the ice storm, the Newtonia and Granby tornadoes, the Micronesian church shooting, and the murder of Rowan Ford. If you have stories like those, with continuing developments and updates, you could very well attract readers, but having all of those things happen in one area is something that cannot be counted on. Investigative reporting is unlikely to happen because of the cost in manpower and hours, as well as the potential cost of advertising revenue when certain oxes are gored.
-Could The Carthage Press go for highbrow subscribers with an increased emphasis on history and the arts? It is ironic that it is the Neosho Daily News that often devotes most of its editorial page in its Sunday edition to historical columns by Kay Hively and Wes Franklin (and very readable columns, to be sure), while it is The Carthage Press that would probably have a much higher readership for that kind of offering.
Anyone have any thoughts on the prospect of local newspapers establishing a pay wall?
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4 comments:
It would be doomed for failure because people in Southwest Missouri and Southeast Kansas wouldn't open their pocketbooks for this.
I gave up reading the liepapers a long time ago. After all, why bother to pay for listening to someone lie to you?
Don't bother me that the local papers are going to try to charge for looking them up on the Internut. I only buy a paper if my name is in it anyway. There are a whole lot of other places to look things up anyway.
Capitalism is not inherently good or noble. People make it that way, people that operate in God’s economy. The management at GateHouse Media is not operating in God’s economy. The top 5 corporate executives took $1,405,000.00 in bonus money in 2010. These executives earn base salaries that are only slightly less that their bonus money.
Here are a few more interesting facts:
1. GateHouse owes $1 billion dollars in long term debt due in 2014
2. GateHouse earned $1.1 million dollars in the 4th quarter of 2010, after 8 consecutive quarters of loss
3. GateHouse has approximately 36 months to pay down the debt.
4. If Michael Reed can negotiate a deal to pay 20 cents on the dollar for the long term debt, the monthly payment amount would be approximately $27.7 million per month.
5. Even if extensions or refinancing is possible, the outlook is grim.
6. This used to be a publically traded company. It is now an OTC pink sheet penny stock.
The leaders of this company based their business plan on good weather and perfect sailing conditions. The inability or refusal to look down the road is an incredible failure of stewardship. Stewardship of the investor’s money, stewardship of the human capital represented by their employees, and stewardship to the communities they serve. If they were hoping to get big, fast, on borrowed money, and sell; they missed that ride. That ride ended in the late ‘90s. What is this? A lack of vision? Greed? How is this any different than ERON, Goldman Sachs, or Bank of America. How do the regional managers go to work every day, destroying good community papers, and leaving employees jobless. All for some very short sighted, short term financial gains. It’s simple. The regional bosses must be getting in on the big bonuses. Pray for these people. Every Sunday, I bet they show up to church to do a little networking and sing a few refrains of Kum Bah Yah. They probably have some crazy evangelical notion that what we “do” in this world doesn’t matter. Read the bible, at the end of time the books will balance. Start practicing good stewardship. Where God has given a lot, much will be demanded.
You naysayers forget about the 'principal,' Gatehouse has Gloria Fletcher in their 'pocket' and if you don't do what she wants she'll make you wish you were dead because you can't provide for your family or kill you outright!
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