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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Are you a paying subscriber to your local paper?
Stanley Leary, Photographer
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Roswell | GA | USA | Posted: 10:56 AM on 10.13.13 |
->> I believe we should all take up as a cause to encourage all of our family and friends to subscribe to their local papers.
This can be an online subscription as well.
We need to support this until there is another viable option where journalists will work on the behalf of their communities to keep them informed.
If you agree will you go to your twitter, facebook, email or whatever you can and encourage your friends?
I would suggest you explain to them why you think they should.
I think at the core the success of a civilization is how informed everyone is about their communities. I can vote and change my community. I can go to events where my friends are needing support. I can learn what my neighbors do and celebrate with them.
I wish I could poll everyone here and see if everyone subscribes, but I would guess many do not.
You want to make a difference--be a subscriber |
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Mark Loundy, Photo Editor, Photographer
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 4:01 PM on 10.13.13 |
->> Laudable, Stanley, but you're shoveling sand against the tide. People aren't going to subscribe to newspapers because they think it's the right thing to do. They're only going to do it if they find them useful or entertaining.
--Mark |
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Michael Fischer, Photographer
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Spencer | Ia | USA | Posted: 5:33 PM on 10.13.13 |
->> Actually Mark, that's not automatically true. Some of the Orange County Register's readers subscribe because they do want a strong, vibrant newspaper and said so.
Granted, the OCR reader base skews upscale, but the fact remains that for all of the talk about the newspaper industry going digital, 90% of the profit still comes from print and readers sometimes do get the value of a newspaper. The digital business model has to be part of newspapers, and not the only model.
And Stanley, I do subscribe to the newspaper. |
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Scott Serio, Photo Editor, Photographer
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Colora | MD | USA | Posted: 7:05 PM on 10.13.13 |
->> Stan...if I had a real local paper, I would. But...at the point where my local paper dumped all of their photographers in favor of just handing their reporters cameras and praying - I can't support that. When I retired from police work and made the transition into 100% photojournalism I even offered to take a pay cut and work for them - just so they could have real images. They mocked me, said they were happy with the product.
Great idea, but I am not supporting my local paper. In fact, I am so opposed to them, I actually started my own local ad-driven news site. It is doing fairly well for being online only. |
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Brian Westerholt, Photographer
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Kannapolis | NC | USA | Posted: 8:56 PM on 10.13.13 |
| ->> I actually subscribe to 2 papers for home delivery, the Charlotte Observer (which I read) and my wife likes the local paper, the (Kannapolis) Independent Tribune, which is down to just 3 days a week (Sunday, Wednesday, Friday). |
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Stanley Leary, Photographer
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Roswell | GA | USA | Posted: 11:54 PM on 10.13.13 |
->> There are a lot of logical reasons to stop buying a newspaper that folks have written to me off the board.
Before we throw the baby out with the bathwater shouldn't we have another viable alternative to keep the freedom of the press in place?
We tell people you have no right to complain if you don't vote.
My question was pretty simple and maybe idealistic, but how are we part of the solution going forward? |
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Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer
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Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 9:39 AM on 10.14.13 |
->> "Freedom of the Press" doesn't require an actual press.
Quick, everyone go buy a roll of film! :-) |
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Mark Loundy, Photo Editor, Photographer
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 10:51 AM on 10.15.13 |
->> All of the reasons to buy a paper mentioned above are valid. I also know for a fact that there people who feel strongly positive about the printed product. But is that the way journalism is going into the future? Unless the trends of the last half-century suddenly reverse, it is not.
--Mark |
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Greg Francis, Photographer
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Rochester | NY | USA | Posted: 12:23 PM on 10.15.13 |
| ->> The local daily in Rochester NY (Gannett), a midsize daily has become total garbage in the last month. Sports & Nation sections are simply USA Today sections, Local news is now in the A section. It's a trainwreck. The final nail in the print 'coffin' is so close, I can see it coming in the next 24 months... |
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Stanley Leary, Photographer
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Roswell | GA | USA | Posted: 12:36 PM on 10.15.13 |
->> "This can be an online subscription as well."
I think the point was missed by many and thinking I am talking about supporting print media. My point is to support the outlets that do journalism.
Next week the Atlanta Press Club is having a panel discussion on it.
As more news outlets accept and implement paywalls, join the Atlanta Press Club on Tuesday, October 22 to discuss the challenges and rewards of these digital pay models.
My post was to encourage us to support those outlets that do journalism. That is the same group that also has as one of it's coverage of community sports. |
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Jim Colburn, Photographer
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Omaha | NE | USA | Posted: 12:46 PM on 10.15.13 |
| ->> I subscribe to my local newspaper even though, aside from the photography, it sucks. I also subscribe to The New York Times, The Economist and Bloomberg Business Week in order to get the real news. |
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Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer
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Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 6:42 AM on 10.16.13 |
->> In all seriousness, what I was saying is that this is the same well-intentioned, but misguided, advice as "Buy American." Neither is a long-term solution to the problems faced by the industry.
If, OTOH, you said "support the information source of your choice," that will generate the market pressures that will force the changes necessary for survival of "journalism."
Ultimately, Kodak failed because it could not figure out how to do digital better than its competitors (some new, some old). Its market dominance allowed it to die a slow and agonizing death (which we're seeing repeated in the newspaper business).
By asking, "Are you a paying subscriber to your local paper?," Stanley, you either misstated your premise or revealed your underlying biases. |
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Stanley Leary, Photographer
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Roswell | GA | USA | Posted: 9:12 AM on 10.16.13 |
->> Chuck I meant local support or how will your local community be covered? How will you know how to vote? There are many options on how to do this.
Paying for journalism coverage in Europe when you live here doesn't help the Freedom of the Press for your local community to be informed for a democracy.
If the local coverage isn't cutting it then maybe you can support a new startup. |
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Rob Dicker, Photographer
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Lake Villa | IL | USA | Posted: 12:16 PM on 10.16.13 |
| ->> Stanley - not since they laid me and all my coworkers off. |
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Tom Ewart, Photographer
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Bentonville | AR | USA | Posted: 10:16 PM on 10.16.13 |
| ->> I'm kind of in the same boat as Rob, one they reduced staff, I don't care too much to support their cause, Kind of like when the NPPA didn't support Freelancers, I moved memberships into org like PMAI. |
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Stanley Leary, Photographer
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Landry Major, Photographer
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Woodland Hills | CA | USA | Posted: 3:47 PM on 10.17.13 |
| ->> We get the NYT and the LAT delivered 7 days a week.Breakfast read. |
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Michael McNamara, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Phoenix | AZ | USA | Posted: 7:08 PM on 10.17.13 |
->> Ezra Klein of The Washington Post was hosting Chris Hayes' show the day that Jeff Bezos bought The Post. And he did a great segment about how subscriptions really don't pay for a lot of journalism. The problem is all of the ad dollars that have been leaving the business.
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/klein-the-unholy-bizarre-business-model-o... |
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Stanley Leary, Photographer
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Roswell | GA | USA | Posted: 5:54 AM on 10.19.13 |
->> Subscriptions are one way that media show to advertisers the audience size.
So in a round about way without them you don't have advertisers.
If a media outlet can show a large audience and if they have even more demographics then they can get the advertising dollars to support creation of the content.
Facebook is a great example of a model where they can not only demonstrate a large audience to advertisers, they can even let those advertisers target the subgroups using customer profiles.
I think when journalism is at its best consistently the audience will be there and then the advertisers will return to support that model. |
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Jonathan Daniel, Photographer
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Chicago | IL | USA | Posted: 2:45 PM on 10.22.13 |
| ->> I subscribe to 2 local papers and the New York Times daily. Wanna keep my friends working. Too bad it didn't work for my buddies at the Chicago Sun-Times. |
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